Dirty Stop Out - Why I ROCK

LOLWTF

2010-04-12T17:41:00.003+01:00

I realise I haven't updated in some time.

HERE'S THE REASON.

Everything I post on here also goes on http://ilovebrucied.deviantart.com/ In fact, a lot more goes on there too. So I suggest visiting that loverly page right there if you want to read some stuff I've written, or see some crap I've drawn...

Magnum, Newcastle Academy, Sunday 25th October 2009

2009-11-24T20:00:00.003Z

Ah, Magnum. Bless 'em - they drew the short straw. Out of all of the gigs I've been to, theirs could hardly have been less conveniently placed. They chose to play Newcastle on the day the clocks went back, so I bet everyone was tired after having their body clock all screwed up. Personally, I'd had a really horrible, depressing week beforehand, and I wasn't feeling too well either. But there's no cure for the blues quite like a rock concert, is there?

I was pissed off to wake up far too early with a really sore throat. I wanted a shower but I couldn't stand to go for one feeling the way I felt, so I went downstairs and saw Amy for a bit, eating Cornflakes and drinking vanilla green tea to help my throat. We flicked through the previous day's papers and played some Magnum through my laptop before I decided I was awake and well enough to go for my shower.

I'd been thinking my outfit through for a while, and now it was time to put it on - nice blue pants, a black bra, socks patterned with heart-shaped Union flags, light blue skinny jeans, black Stonehenge shirt (Spinal Tap), black jacket and boxing boots. I squirted on lots of Emporio Armani Diamonds to make myself smell good enough to eat.

Dad had been for a bike ride, and he returned while me and Amy were lazing around downstairs. I needed to go to the supermarket and he said he'd take me, so I waited for him to get changed, donned my black trilby, and we headed out to Tesco in the Fiat.I needed cash, primarily - and the two cash machines were out of order. This completely messed up the second thing I needed - Magnum ice creams. Dad put them in the basket with lunch, and I still owe him the money for them … Stiggy and I had spent a long time choosing which ones we wanted, eventually settling on some posh ones full of chocolate, chocolate ice cream and chocolate brownie bits. They were on offer, too. Bonus!

Because we both still needed cash, we stopped at the Co-Op on the way home. I withdrew £30 to be safe.When we got home, Dad started lunch and I went upstairs to check my deviantArt messages. I managed to answer about half of them before lunch was ready - a dangerous mistake! It's either all or none, or they build up more, I find.The leek and potato soup we had soothed my throat well. I also drank one of those paracetamol drinks you make with a sachet of powder and hot water because I don't take tablets, but I felt rubbish enough to not want to feel rubbish any more. When we were done eating, I set about getting ready. This involved filling my pockets with all the necessary items - camera, spare batteries, earplugs, phone, cash, debit card, house key, tickets and, for some reason, the set list on a little piece of paper. (Yes, I looked at the set list. I'm not proud of myself, but I'm glad I did it, for reasons I will reveal later on in the story.) Dad left before we did to go for a walk somewhere with Charlotte, so he gave me another £20 for stuff for Amy and said goodbye. He seemed in a really good mood, which is always nice, especially when it's Dad. And especially when he's picking us up from a gig …

Ready way too early, I spent quite a lot of time playing solitaire and freecell on my laptop before I decided I couldn't stand it any more. We set off at quarter to two: we were meeting at two. It takes around five minutes to get there.

"There's no going back now," Amy said to me, as we walked away from the house, "If we don't know any songs, we'll just have to not know them." Or something like that, anyway.

Of course, we arrived a bit early so we sat down to wait, Magnums in hand. We played Magnum songs on our phones, and I opened the Magnum box. Each ice cream was in its own separate silver box … dead posh!

Stiggy arrived not long afterwards, so we went and paid for our tickets and sat on the platform. £11.25 for me and Amy - not as bad as I'd expected it to be! Because the train wasn't until twenty five past two, we had a bit of waiting to do. Amy and I practised our 'Bob Catley dance' - hard to describe, but watch just about any live Magnum video and the BDC will become clear. I caught my reflection in one of the shiny advert signs and realised my bottom half looked kind of like 80s Bob Catley.

The weather was miserable, eventually raining and driving us into the shelter. My throat was getting sore again - the boxed Magnum in my hand was growing more and more tempting. I decided to just have a tiny bit. Before I knew it, I was scoffing the whole thing. It was heavenly. And because Stiggy got 'food envy' she started hers too, making me feel less guilty. Amy was good. She waited.

When the train arrived, it was absolutely packed, despite being one of those epically long ones. We had a quick search for three seats somewhere near each other with no success, so we ended up standing in one of those connecty bits. Still eating our Magnums … Amy got started on hers. We were all excited, giggly and rather loud; much to the annoyance, I suppose, of the other poor people who had been reduced to standing. When we reached Darlington, Amy reckoned enough people would get off to allow us to find a seat. By this point, I'd finished my Magnum, as had Stiggy: but neither of us wanted to throw away our posh boxes! We took them with us as we searched for seats. Still, we couldn't find three together, but we were so bored of standing that we just squished onto two seats, me in the middle. I tried to fit the Magnum tickets into the Magnum box, but they were too big so I made do with putting my train ticket in there instead. Amy, in true graphics-student form, deconstructed hers to see how it fitted together. A woman who worked on the train passed us, and asked if we had any rubbish. We probably looked retarded, saying we didn't whilst playing with rubbish!

To my irritation, nobody checked our tickets! We could have ridden for free, and used the extra money for Magnum-related stuff!

The train terminated at Newcastle, meaning everyone got off. It was a huge train, and therefore somewhat hectic - this one man who passed us caught my attention, though. He was wearing a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt that I swear he got free with an offer Classic Rock did.

Consequently, the train station suddenly filled up. Plus, we'd arrived on a platform quite far from the door. We struggled our way through the crowds, trying to make our way out. As we walked, I realised I had a bit of a problem. A problem so horrific I really can't write it here, and so horrible that I could not sort it out in public. I simply struggled with it.

Having decided the Academy management probably wouldn't allow our Magnum boxes into the gig, we chucked them away (sadly) and carried on up the street. It was cold, and windy - I kept a firm hold on my trilby as we trekked up to Beatdown Records. I was in quite a bit of pain by this point …

A visit to Beatdown always cheers me up, though. We'd been worried it'd be shut, but we were OK. We had 'til four. Having discovered the Vinyl Room on the day of the Skindred gig, Stiggy and I lead the way to show Amy. The lady we met last time was there again! She didn't recognise me at first, but after a few minutes she asked if we'd been in the shop before. I explained that me and Stiggy were indeed the girls from three Sundays ago - only this time we'd lost a Laura and acquired an Amy. She asked if we hadn't managed to convert Laura so I explained that this was a different kind of band really, and she didn't know much about them.

I could honestly spend hours and hours in that place. We chatted to the woman and browsed through records, unfortunately unable to buy any of them due to the upcoming concert. The cool thing about this shop, though, is that if you like the look of something you can put it on the turntable and play it. Much to Amy's irritation I played the Blockbuster! single. I wanted it so much … and Wig Wam Bam… Amy said afterwards that she'd wanted to put on the W.A.S.P. picture disc of Animal (F*ck Like a Beast), but had been worried about the bad language. I knew the woman in there wouldn't've minded - Laura had asked her about that sort of thing last time before recommending Steel Panther's album Feel the Steel to her.

She loved our accents, too. I called Roger Daltrey a 'little beauteh' and she commented on what I'd said. I'd said I was flattered, even though I'd been exaggerating my accent … she was from Glasgow, I think. I was gutted - after last time, Laura hadn't noticed an accent at all, I'd thought she was Irish, and Stiggy had thought she was Scottish. She was right … and I was wrong! Damn!

At about ten to four, we said goodbye and had a quick browse around the CDs. Sweet FA had gone but there were a couple of other Sweet CDs left that I drooled over, including Desolation Boulevard, before we left. The man in this part of the shop was shutting everything off, and he smiled at us as we walked out - Stiggy and I both liked him. I mean, come on! He had nice long hair …

I was reminded of my discomfort as we strolled into the city centre. Of course we still wouldn't be able to buy anything, but we love Newcastle so much that we could spend a long time simply looking. We discussed our Newcastle- and Geordie-love as we went. Of course, HMV was our first stop. Lots more Sweet to add to my music wish list … I tried not to look too hard in case I found something I so desperately wanted that I started screaming, but I had a quick dabble around the Metal section, tutted at the availability of Sonisphere t-shirts outside of Sonisphere festival, and flicked through Brian Johnson's book Rockers and Rollers. I hadn't even realised it was out yet. That's definitely going on the Christmas list …

I was kind of hoping we'd bump into the Maiden boys from the Skindred gig. Apparently they lived in Newcastle, but we had no luck.

We made our way back through Eldon Square shopping centre and to the Gate; the tall, magical entertainment complex full of various restaurants, movie quotes, and reliable toilets. Finally, I got to sort out my problem… ew. It was horrible. I won't be wearing those pants with those jeans again in a hurry …

With just over two hours until doors, we decided we might as well eat. We were hungry - I'll remind you that it felt like nearly six to us, instead of nearly five. After withdrawing an extra tenner from a Northern Rock cash machine, we went to Burger King right over the road from the Academy. I just had a chicken burger, Stiggy a bean burger meal and Amy a chicken burger meal, I think. We settled at the table with the best view of the Academy.

Hanging round on the steps outside was a bunch of teenage boys, one of which looked a lot like the blonde Maiden boy who had talked to me at Skindred. As I ate I kept a close eye on them. They appeared to be dancing. Strange …There were quite a few random songs playing in Burger King. Stiggy commented that it felt like we were in a 50s diner, and it sort of did.It was dark outside. Far too early - I felt shattered. Not ideal for a rock concert.

We finished eating a lot sooner than we'd expected. Now what to do? Most places were closed, or closing - it was a Sunday, after all. We tried to hang around for as much as possible, but when I noticed Possible Maiden Boy leaving, I insisted we went out to follow him. The weather was colder and more miserable outside.

PMB came back the other way, and passed us. Up close, I wasn't so sure it was him.

With nothing else left to do, we headed towards the Life Centre to loiter … until it started properly raining! The only shelter was to the side of the main square, sat on these big, curvy ledges that you'd slide off if you weren't careful. Dark, chilly, but dry. Stiggy got freaked out by a spider, so I sat between her and it.

There then followed forty-five minutes to an hour of random conversation as we waited for the rain to stop, which it didn't. By six it had calmed down somewhat, so we decided we'd go to the loo one last time before joining the queue. We wanted good places.

Unfortunately, we'd planned to go back into Burger King. And Burger King was shut.

As we waited to cross the road, though, one of the lads from the steps approached us.

"Excuse me, would one of yous dance with us?" he asked, in an accent that could've been Geordie or Irish, I'm not sure.

I thought quickly, laughing, "Well, we're just off to the bog, so you don't really want to dance with us," I informed him.

He saw that as fair enough, and returned to his friends. No hard feelings, then! I felt I did well - I didn't want to dance with random strangers, but I didn't want to make enemies of random strangers either. We laughed about it all the way to the Gate, where we made our second and final trip to the bathroom. Stiggy used a lot of this valuable time to hide her bag under her jacket. It took so long because she kept reckoning she looked fat. Honestly - she complains so much about girls, but then she totally is one. When we'd assured her she looked fine, we made our way back to queue.

There were only a few people there already, and there were two gigs on - Sonic Boom Six were upstairs - so it was likely some of them would be queuing for that. Especially the ones in Sonic Boom Six shirts. And then a couple in front of us left, so we moved even closer to the front.

We'd expected to be pretty much the only teenagers at Magnum, and so far, we'd been proven right. Any teens in the queue were clearly Sonic Boom Six fans - the people turning up to Magnum were mostly middle-aged male rockers, some with their partners. Most of these partners looked like rockers too; a few, however, were dressed up all smart. ? Really? To a rock concert?

I checked out some of the Magnum t-shirts that the men were wearing. They were really arty and nice. I looked forward to buying my own, predicting that it would have Into the Valley of the Moonking album art on it.

I contemplated whether or not to buy a battered Mars Bar from a nearby fast food shop. I'd planned on it and I'd been looking forward to it - now, however, I didn't see the point. I still wasn't feeling 100% and I didn't think I'd enjoy it that much.

We chatted about different bands and rock stars as we waited, playing songs on our phones. Amy talked about her W.A.S.P. excitement; Stiggy talked about her Saxon excitement. Aw, gigs are so awesome.

A woman came down the queue with leaflets for a club's Hallowe'en do. I got three by mistake.At seven, the doors opened. We filtered in gradually - it was a mark of just how "popular" Magnum are that several people bought their tickets there and then, at the box office. We were directed around these people to have our own checked, and we were in!

We went up one flight of stairs, but where the Sonic Boom Six fans continued going up, we got our tickets checked once more and got through another door, thus arriving at the main stage. Dead quiet so far - we were among the first in, after all - so after a quick glance at the t-shirt stall we ran to the front, arriving on the barrier, slightly to the right. Get in! First time on the barrier for a real band, and not just a cover/tribute act! Not that there was a great deal of competition for this prize position - we actually seemed to be attracting stares for the fuss we made. Most people were content to hang about, chilling and having drinks. And the barrier took its time to fill up.

Stiggy ruled that it would be better to buy a shirt after the show, but I was set on getting mine straight away so I didn't have to worry about it later. After instructing Amy to keep my place, I dashed back across the floor and up the steps into the bar area where the shirts were being sold. There were three types - a men's shirt with the Into the Valley of the Moonking cover on the front, a women's shirt with the word 'Magnum' on a pretty pinky-purpley cloudy thingy, and a sports style shirt. The man in the queue in front of me bought the men's one - he held it up to reveal the tour dates on the back, making my decision for me. I asked the woman for a small. Apparently the smallest they did was a medium! What? Did slim people not like Magnum?

Fortunately, I'm tall. Therefore I can just about pull off a medium men's shirt. I bought it and rushed back to the barrier.

Of course, in my absence the other barrier-dwellers had made themselves a bit more comfortable, meaning my space was now restricted. I gave Amy £20 and she ran too.

Where there had been a man to my left, there was now a young woman. She was wearing some sort of pass around her neck and carrying a digital camera.

"Have you listened to the support band on MySpace?" she asked me.

I told her I hadn't. I never do - what's the point with support bands? They rarely don't suck. Besides, the best way to judge a band is to see them live. She agreed with this, at least - she explained that she worked with the band, who were called Decadenze, and that they sounded way better live.

Amy returned with the girly shirt - no tour dates, but to be fair she would have drowned in the other one.

I got out my earplugs, ready for the support band. I've started wearing them recently because sometimes I feel like my hearing isn't as it should be, and other people agree … they're actually quite good. It's not that I don't like loud rock, but they cut out a lot of the static so the sound quality improves. However, stupidly, I dropped one on the floor at the other side of the barrier.

I could have done with them too. The choice of music was terrible, mostly miserable American wannabe-metal bands who sound like they're being forced to make rubbish music as opposed to doing it because it's awesome to play in a band. I remember hearing Stone Sour with Through the Glass. The songs played a lot like the track list of a free CD I got with one of the first ever issues of Classic Rock I bought. A couple of them had singers that sounded like Geddy Lee, but I'm pretty confident that they weren't.

A couple just down the barrier from us were acting nauseatingly mushy. The woman was leaning back on the barrier with her forehead pressed to her husband's; both of them had their eyes shut and just stood like that for ages. I mean - what? Is a Magnum concert really the time and place for slushy (sick) behaviour?

It didn't help that I was still tired out. I draped my shirt and leaflets over the barrier (which, incidentally, would fall off twice during the show. Gigs sound funny from the floor. I ended up leaving the leaflets, though…) and rested my head on them.

After what seemed like ages, Decadenze took the stage. Five men who go to the same barber and stylist - the hair was all slightly longer than the average man's, and clearly had had too much effort put into it, and every single member was wearing all black. The singer even had black nail varnish.

God knows why they were supporting Magnum. They neither looked nor sounded like Magnum fans, their music loud, shouty and generic. You know the sort I mean - so many new bands who never get further than being support acts share the same sound.

Where are all the decent bands?

I don't know what you think, but I've noticed that nowadays, anyone can sing for a band. The world is buzzing with all these new musicians - perhaps inspired by and spawned from certain guitar-based games - who can really play. Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of talented drummers, bassists and guitarists around. But in this frenzy of instrumental excitement, people seem to have forgotten that bands need frontmen in order to flourish. And an arrogant arsehole who can just about carry a tune with his bland voice does not constitute a front man, despite what Decadenze think. This country has churned out some outstanding rock frontmen - has our supply really run down so fast?

Not that any of this matters. Because not even Hendrix could make a good live show out of such mediocre song writing. I mean, what is the use of having good musicians when your songs are - let's be blunt here - shit? That is another thing emerging bands tend to do wrong. Songs lack the attention-grabbing riffs needed to hold the interest of a rock crowd. Their songs just sort of happen. They start, they end. There's no substance, no structure - merely a lot of noise. If I could give bands like this one piece of advice, it would be to sort out their influences. Do their homework - the last century is full of legendary groups of all forms of rock who indeed made a lot of noise, but made it well.

Overall, Decadenze played a set full off that amateurish bull that only a support band could (just) get away with.

As if to add extra disgust, the areshole singer spat water everywhere. He was good at spitting, I'll give him that. Stiggy, Amy and I all got sprayed. Repulsed, Amy folded her arms and glared at the end of their set as everyone else applauded. For some reason, this prompted the singer to throw her his wristband. I didn't see it, but she deliberately didn't catch it, and it fell behind the barrier.

I was left wondering why Magnum had allowed such a terrible support band as Decadenze left the stage. It amazed me that the woman who'd been next to me hadn't been the only one singing along - a few of the older guys had looked like they were enjoying themselves too. They'd clearly been MySpacing … down with the kids or what? Despite the fact that the only other "kids" I'd seen, besides us, were two young lads just behind us. Man, are Magnum cool …

Venting our frustration, we bitched about Decadenze. The woman next to me left and was replaced by the original man. I told Amy who she worked for, much to her disgust. A roadie patrolling the space behind the barrier picked up the dropped wristband, and gave it to me. Fair enough … if they ever do get slightly bigger I can flog it, I guess.

This wait was horrible. We were all worn out and it felt like almost ten at night despite it not even being nine yet. I crossed my fingers at the end of every song, but nothing happened for a while. The man beside me said something that I didn't catch.One of these songs, I think, actually was Rush this time! The Big Money. That was more like it.Waiting …

Zzzzzzz …

"This is it," Amy said after a while, when quiet fell, "I can feel it."

Nope, she was wrong. Another song started up. Damn! What time was it? Just gone nine. Where the bloody hell were Magnum?

Luckily, they weren't far away.

After another song or two, the lights went from being red to pretty much non-existent as the Intro from Into the Valley of the Moonking began to play. I always forget how atmospheric concert openings are. I love them. I got my camera and began to film …

The lights came on again, dark blue this time, with little twinkling white dots dancing on the backdrop of the stage. I'd wondered why there were no pictures or anything there … Amy told me to turn round, and when I did, a beautiful sight met my eyes. Above all the dimly lit faces of the crowd, stars were swirling around on the balcony in the same deep blue light. It would have made a fantastic photo, but sadly I was still filming.

"MAGNUM!" bellowed a couple of blokes near us, dominating the whole crowd. Not for the first time, either.

One by one the band, aided by torchlight, made their way on. My concert nerves had only been slight this time - practise makes perfect, eh? But now they were eradicated completely. Amy's favourite, Mark Stanway the keyboard player … Stiggy's favourite, Tony Clarkin the guitar player … where was "mine"? Where was Bob? ( The 'mine' is in inverted commas because Amy reckons I fancy him. I don't. Really.)

Ah. I caught a glimpse of a cloud of fluffy hair just off-stage. There he was.

But when he came on just before he had to start singing, I got the shock of my life.

He looked so old. He was sixty two, granted, but something about him seemed way older. His once-blonde hair was white and his face, although the same as always, looked weary and worn. I was amazed to see how tiny he was too - shorter than the others by far, and the white shirt he was wearing swamped him.

He still had his voice, though, launching into Cry to Yourself, the song that follows the Intro (which can be a slight irritation when your mp3 player's on shuffle). I looked for the features I'd found on Amy's Live in London DVD and found that his dancing, though not quite the BCD of old, wasn't far off. He moves more now, where he used to stand pretty still. And he was still as strange as he always has been!

We were in a fantastic position for photos. I got loads and loads.They followed with my favourite song from the new album Take Me to the Edge. This one's a bit heavier, making it easier to 'get into'. And Bob looked down and gave Amy a little wave! I thought I might've imagined it, but I asked afterwards and she said she was sure of it as well. Cool!

Remember near the beginning I said, with regard to Magnum's set list, '…for reasons I will reveal later on in the story'? Well, now it's time to reveal them.Magnum appear to be one of those bands who, when they tour a new album, they tour it. Not quite as epically as Iron Maiden on the A Matter of Life and Death, tour, but the majority of the material they played came from the last few albums as opposed to the classic Magnum era and thereabouts. This was why I was glad to have taken a look at the set list - most of the Magnum I know is old, so knowing the newer songs they were going to play, I did my homework and played them on You Tube a few times. It sucks not knowing songs at gigs.

Brand New Morning was one of these songs. While singing along to the chorus, I took more photos on the bits I was shaky on.

Bob introduced the next song. I can't remember exactly how word-wise, but he was holding a little pot thing about the size of a shot glass. It had things inside it - my first thought was pills, but when Bob sprinkled the contents everywhere we discovered it was glitter! Aw, pretty. One of the evil venue security men came strode over to check it out, like it was something suspicious. Luckily, he seemed satisfied that it was merely perfectly innocent glitter.

Anyway, the song was The Moonking. No prizes for guessing which album that came from. And although it was well performed, it was the lights that really stole the show here - a huge, realistic full moon materialised on the backdrop. The lights throughout the show really were beautiful. And from the front row, it didn't even feel like we were in the dark at all.

My least familiar song next, When We Were Young. Cheesily, it got me thinking about Magnum then and Magnum now. Mainly, however, I concentrated on my photos.

I knew the next song - No One Knows His Name. Although I sang along more to the music than the words, because there are some pretty little keyboard bits in the chorus that I really love.

Bob is a very dramatic front man. He never stops moving his arms, almost acting out the words of the songs. And the fan at the front of the stage was a great help, blowing his hair all over the place.

More pretty melodies and more pretty lights with Dragons Are Real. Although Bob didn't sing some of the higher notes in the chorus the song wasn't really affected. I need to buy Princess Alice and the Broken Arrow now, even if it's just for this one track. It's so magical it sort of sweeps you in.

There followed a chilled-out from ITVOTM; A Face in the Crowd. Extremely relevant to the couple of thousand faces in that crowd that night, gazing up at Magnum in all their coloured-lit, pretty-songed glory.

We All Run presented a bit more of a beat, if a slow, steady one. It's hard to clap along, though, when you're rammed in on the barrier.

I wanted arms-in-the-air space for the next song, too, so I made use of the empty gap between the stage and the barrier. Les Morts Dansant, French for 'the dancing dead'. This was more like it: classic Magnum from my favourite Magnum album, On a Storyteller's Night. Quite a deep epic of sorts, it puts across the horrors of war. I made a short video, not wanting to spend this whole song holding my camera steady.

As it was possibly my most familiar song of the show, I could judge it better as a live performance, and it was spot on. Bob got really 'into' it, and it gave an atmosphere that I'm sure everyone could feel. The two "MAGNUM!" blokes kept filling in words in the chorus, even when they didn't have to:

"What a night though it's one of seven…"

"SEVEN!"

They were actually pretty funny …

At the end of the song, Bob apologised, I think, for getting emotional.They turned upbeat again for the happy All My Bridges, lifting spirits all around. Followed by another 'all' song (they seem to have a few) All England's Eyes. Yes - another oldie! I shone. I'm such an old man at heart. I had a lot of fun during this tune.

And then - another oldie! Get in! The title track from their Vigilante album, which I'd just bought Stiggy on vinyl for her birthday. Not that Bob really said the word very much: he started with "Vigi-" and we'd finish "-Lante!"

They seemed to be going out on some heavy tracks after Les Morts Dansant. Yes, going out. After Vigilante Bob said goodbye, and they exited stage left. But obviously, we weren't going to leave. After all, how many bands don't do encores?We stood around cheering and whistling for a bit. A couple of smattered-around chants of "Magnum! Magnum!" started up, but no one seemed to be able to keep in time with one another so we reverted to the general cheering.

According to Guitar Hero, you're not supposed to write your encore on your set list, because then your fans will know you planned it. Makes sense - encores are meant to be earned.

So why do bands write their encores on their set lists? I could see one on the stage. There were two songs written at the end, and two lines down from the rest.Sure enough, Magnum returned, much to our delight. The lights turned a fiery reddy-orange as they began the creepy intro to Don't Wake the Lion. Bob kept moving his fan, and leaning over it to cool down.I don't know this song very well, but it was very effective live - the music and lights combined made for a brilliant show, and I spent quite a lot of time concentrating on taking photos - mainly of Bob, but also of Tony and Alan, the bass player.

The final song came after this lengthy epic - Kingdom of Madness. Everyone knows this song. (By 'everyone', I mean among Magnum fans, of course…) It drew us in with the heavy beginning, then got us all singing during the contrasting tuneful chorus. Knowing it was the end made me enjoy myself even more, even though after two bands I was absolutely shattered. The line 'and a lovely time is had by all' made a lot of sense right then.

But the show wasn't over then - "It's meet the band time," Bob announced, proceeding to go through everyone and finishing, of course, on Tony Clarkin - "He has all the songs for Magnum, and of course for you." Tony really is a great songwriter. And he gave me a thumbs-up! I made eye contact with him, cheering, and he smiled. That made me happy, as he's not that smiley a man.

The lights came on again pretty much as soon as they left, a new song starting up over the sound system that I knew, but could never name, which is still doing my head in now - it sounded like a cross between AC/DC and Magnum, and the chorus had a slowish 'yeah yeah yeah' line.

The crowd filtered out quite quickly. Stiggy bought her shirt - the girl's one - before we left the main stage. And it seemed Sonic Boom Six were done too, because emoish teens were trickling from upstairs.Where Dad usually waits, though, there was no one. Well - plenty of rockers hanging around, of course, but no Dad. Admittedly we were about ten minutes earlier out than we'd expected to be, so we waited for a moment.

As I had a bit of change, I went to the fast food place for a can of Coke, and we returned to the meeting place. A couple of blokes were having a conversation that included Whitesnake and Gary Moore."

I heard Whitesnake! I like Whitesnake!" Amy cried.

"I heard Gary Moore! I like Gary Moore!" I added. However, I hadn't seen him live, where I had, of course, seen Whitesnake, as I pointed out.

Dad and Charlotte rounded the corner not long afterwards. We headed off with them to the car, ready to begin our detailed verbal assessment of the gig. This, of course, included a rant about the awful support band. But mainly we talked about Bob. He honestly has to be the weirdest front man I've ever seen: Stiggy was actually wondering if he was on drugs, he just seemed so spaced out. I reckon he's just kind of strange anyway. He liked to bow and blow kisses out across the crowd - a tad flamboyant, perhaps, if that's the right word?

We discussed much random crap on the way home, including X Factor - Stiggy's mum texted her to tell her that the twins were still in, much to all of our disgust. We don't like the twins. We really don't.Conversation kept flowing quite well. The DJ on the radio played the song Forever Autumn from Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds, which Dad and Charlotte both love, but find kind of sad. Stiggy gets annoyed with it - she used to have a teacher who made her type to the WOTW music. But eventually we couldn't avoid our sleepiness. The car was wonderfully warm and comfortable as we travelled smoothly home, first dropping off Charlotte, then Stiggy.

We went to bed pretty much the minute we got in. I thanked Dad for picking us up - it should be the last time for a while! - and headed upstairs. I stuck my ticket up with all my others, right beside my signed Skindred one. I got my Pjs on, laid out my big t-shirt to wear the next day, and got into bed.Diary entry that night/early next morning:

'Magnum Sunday 25

There's nothing like a great trip to Newcastle to cure them blues, is there? Even when you can't buy anything, because it generally means you're going to a gig. We got the train and ate Magnum ice creams on the way there, then went to speak to the cool lady in the record shop. We looked in HMV and had tea in Burger King. It rained. We hid under shelter outside the Life centre. Then we went to the Academy to see Magnum! My God, I was absolutely amazed by how old Bob Catley looks. It's like he's a completely different person to how he used to be.'

So yeah - Bob got old. But people do. And when it comes to rock 'n' roll, age comes quicker, it seems. However, what really matters is their ability to keep pumping out great tunes. Therefore Magnum still rock - even though I would've loved to hear more classic stuff, the songs they did play they played flawlessly.

Download 09 - Sunday, 14th June, Donington Park

2009-07-31T23:13:00.003+01:00

Download Festival - Donington Park
Sunday, 14th June 2009
Bands seen: Journey, ZZ Top, Steel Panther, Whitesnake and Def Leppard

To be honest with you I’m not really looking forward to doing this gig log. It’s not so much a gig log as a whole-day-of-a-festival log. Imagine how hard the whole weekend would be! Oh well. I shouldn’t have to worry about that until next Summer.

Despite this, I’m going to do it. I can hardly not, really, considering how close I came to not going!

Me and Steph had decided we were going to go right back when the headliners were announced. Parts of the line-up seemed pretty decent, so we asked around the rest of our friends. It soon became clear that we were the only two who really wanted to go. Well, Amy did, but she was too young to get in without an adult and Dad wasn’t going to go. This would be one show she’d miss.

However, where Dad and even Charlotte had thought this a really cool idea, Steph’s parents weren’t so clear. For weeks she nagged them and they kept giving her different responses. We had our hearts set on camping (even if Steph did have a slight issue with cleanliness there) but I don’t think they trusted us to do that.

In the end it got so complicated that I was on the verge of giving up completely. Until one day whilst shopping in Middlesbrough with Steph and Amy I saw an ad for day trips to each day of the festival. As I was wanting to see Def Leppard and Whitesnake most of all, I suggested going on the Sunday. Steph was doubtful - she said she wanted the whole ‘festival experience’. But I was so sick of all the messing about. I asked Laura if she wanted to come for the day, and she agreed because it was cheaper. The next Saturday I booked two places on this trip. Steph was still thinking about what to do, but I could finally get excited. I wasn’t bothered about missing a lot of the other bands: in fact, the only actual headliners I liked were Def Leppard.

So I started to get ready. This involved expanding my Def Leppard collection and actually starting a Whitesnake one. They’d always been one of those bands that I knew a couple of songs of, and liked these songs, but had never found the time to find out more about them. I mean, come on - there are so many bands like that, aren’t there? So here was my opportunity. Because there wasn’t a whole lot of time, certainly not enough to buy everyone’s back catalogues, I devised a strategy: I’d buy a classic album, the newest album, and a greatest hits album to cheat with. I already had Def Leppard’s ‘Best Of’ so I bought ‘Hysteria’, ‘Songs From the Sparkle Lounge’, Whitesnake’s ‘Best Of’, ‘1987’ (it was going to be ‘Slide It In’ until I found out that it wasn’t the one with ‘Here I Go Again’ on it) and ‘Good to Be Bad’. I started to do the same thing with ZZ Top, but once I’d played ‘Eliminator’ through I decided I probably wouldn’t get that into them so I gave that up there. I had a lot of material to go at, anyway. And so loads of intensive listening began.

Then Steph found out (pretty conveniently if you ask me - sorry Stiggy, but I’m still kind of pissed off at you over all that. We were gonna camp, man! It was gonna be a blast!) that her cousin lived really near to Donington Park. So she booked weekend tickets for her and her mum, and they’d stay there. Our plans hadn’t worked out, but at least I was going, and Laura was going, and Steph was going. We had something to look forward to after all our AS-levels (Laura actually had one the Wednesday after but let’s forget about that, shall we?)

However, all was not as it seemed …

Two days after my seventeenth birthday and six days before Download, I got a message on the answer phone from the travel company: the trip had been cancelled. No reason, no explanation, just cancelled. I burst into tears and spent almost the whole night crying. It was awful - I’d been so excited for weeks and weeks and it was all for nothing. Worse than nothing, in fact, because I’d almost had something and it had been taken away from me. Laura was annoyed but I was absolutely devastated beyond belief. I remember listening to ‘Rocket’ on my laptop and singing along really miserably. I went to sleep crying, practically. I just felt so helpless and in despair - it sounds pathetic now, but at the time it was totally appropriate. I told Steph the next day on the way to college and she was outraged. I had calmed down a bit but I was still thoroughly depressed all day. So in Media, Steph told me not to give up. She was going to do loads of research that night, and she WAS going to get us there.

So that night, she told me on Facebook that we could get a train from York to Derby, where her mum and her would pick us up and bring us to the festival. We were allowed to stay at her cousin’s house overnight and we’d come home on Monday. We’d get there a bit late, and we’d have to skive college on the Monday, but we would get to go. We ran the plan by Laura the next day and, after a whole bunch of money-sorting-out and debit-card-registering, we booked two Sunday day tickets. Whoo! (OK Steph - I’ll forgive you partially for all this you did. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be hanging from a rope in my bedroom or something. Well - maybe not. It wasn’t THAT bad … but still. I love you man! (The ‘man’ makes it not gay.))

I’d book the train tickets on Thursday, when I got paid. But that day Steph was kind of worried. Due to heavy rainfall, flash floods had stopped some of the train services from York to Derby. I started to panic, and decided to put ticket-booking on hold, just in case. Maybe we just weren’t meant to go …

After that, though, the weather cleared up. It got sunnier and warmer, and it was pretty certain that catching the train wasn’t going to be a problem.

Right. There’s the background story and the build up. Now I can get on with the day!

Dad came to wake me up just after seven, and I was shattered. I spent a few minutes lying in bed, trying to motivate myself with the idea of Def Leppard, but in the end I had to drag myself up sleepily. I had some of my stuff laid out so I wouldn’t forget it. I got dressed in the socks that have now become my ‘gig socks’, the purple stripy Fat Face ones, my black girl boxers with AC/DC on them and a plain black bra, my black cut-off jeans and the Maiden shirt I got from Twickenham. Steph had texted me on the Friday evening advising wellies, but it hadn’t rained for a while so I settled for black boots. My sleeping bag and pyjamas were already down there, so all I brought was a little HMV bag with more underwear, socks, deodorant, a toothbrush and a bunch of sweets Dad had bought me for the journey. I put on a bit of eyeliner and some Britney Spears Fantasy - Ellan’s preferred gig perfume which she’d bought me for my birthday. My nails were already painted dark blue. I put on all the hematite jewellery I owned, stuck my (Poundland) sunglasses on my head, gathered up the stuff I needed and headed downstairs. I had to cram a camera, a phone, two AA batteries, my eyeliner, a little notebook, (for autographs and/or note taking) a pen and some cash (Dad’s borrowed cash, actually - I’d been for a refund from the travel company the day before, but it hadn’t gone in to my bank account yet, to my sheer annoyance) in my pockets.

As I’d straightened my hair the night before I only had to give it a quick going over. Of course, as this was a gig day, I was way too excited for breakfast. I just got my pre-prepared bottle of water out of the fridge and had a quick drink before putting it in the HMV bag. I didn’t have a lot to do - the one thing I’d been worried about was remembering the batteries, and as I’d done that I didn’t have much else to worry about. At home, anyway. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, put my toothbrush back in the bag, and I was ready. Dad and I set off at about eight, leaving Amy fast asleep.

I was quite excited. There was absolutely no trace of my standard pre-gig nervousness. Instead, I was feeling a lot of ‘oh my God I hope everything works out OK’ nervousness…

We picked Charlotte up first, so she could ride with Dad and, presumably, keep him sane whilst he drove two hyper seventeen-year-old rockers to York. She was out straight away and we doubled back towards Laura’s. Dad expressed his jealousy - he loved getting up early for things that weren’t work. I knew exactly how he felt. It always adds to it when you have to drag yourself out of bed at a ridiculous hour.

I got out of the car to get Laura. She was all ready in the hall with Morag and a whole bunch of stuff. She was also wearing a Maiden shirt, the one with Eddie giving the finger. We were a right pair of Maidenheads! We said bye to Morag before carrying Laura’s stuff over to the Land Rover. She had a smaller bag for the day, which she’d chosen deliberately to put people off stealing it, and other things for the night which we put in the boot.

Now we had everything, we could set off! The day was looking nice already and it was still only early. Laura and I chatted excitedly. Maybe everything was going to be OK after all!

But our first obstacle came not long after we’d set off. The car started telling Dad that the bonnet was open. Normally easy enough to fix by shutting the boot. However, this proved to be easier said than done. Dad and Charlotte both got out and tried tons of times before it finally closed. The strange thing was that Dad hadn’t opened the bonnet in ages.

Anyway, once this was sorted, we continued on our way. Dad had the radio on - luckily, I had anticipated this. I’d brought my headphones, my personal CD player and Def Leppard’s ‘Best Of’ album, so Laura and I listened to that for a bit. I knew I was going to see a good few bands, but Def Leppard were the one I was looking forward to the most.

We parked up in York at about ten to nine. The weather was still gorgeous and showing no signs of changing, which relaxed me. We walked down by the river, then over the bridge and to the train station. I’d never been anywhere from there except back home. So first things first - buying tickets. I wanted to use the machiney things so I didn’t have to waste my spending money on one but I hadn’t brought my card. Even so, I checked the ticket price on one of them. A one-way ticket to Derby was £35. What a rip off! I was gob smacked. I hoped that they’d cost less from the actual ticket office, but no such luck. We each spent half of our money for the day just on getting there. Charlotte appeared to be disgusted - she asked the man there if there was any way we could get them cheaper and he said we needed to have booked them at least two weeks in advance, which was useless because back then we’d thought we’d be going by coach. On the website the price had been £19 for the two of us, but that was without fees and at that point I’d been terrified to book them because of the train-floody situation. Dad said that if he’d know, he would’ve driven us there himself and we could’ve just given him some petrol money. But Charlotte said, quite rightly, that we hadn’t known so he should stop beating himself up about it. It was what it was.

Dad gave us another tenner each, saying he didn’t want us to be short, and this wasn’t like any other day out. Laura looked guilty, and I felt it too as we took his money. The money that Laura already had was what I’d given her for the ticket - pretty much the only money she had until she got paid at the end of the month.

We crossed over to the platform. There were quite a few people waiting there already. I noticed one young woman in a Download shirt with a bag covered in rock patches. I wondered where she was going.

We went to sit on this barrier thing to wait for the train. It was still sunny and hot. Laura decided to re-apply her sun cream - she said something about having hairy legs, and Charlotte said she didn’t, so that was one conversation I stayed out of. Charlotte also pointed out that I’d be boiling hot in my leather jacket. At first I insisted I’d be OK, but then I realised she was right. I stuffed everything from my jacket into my jeans pockets.

As we waited, there was an announcement. Our train was delayed because some turd had crashed into a road bridge in Leeds. I couldn’t have been more mad at the aforementioned turd. We had no idea how long we were going to be delayed for. I sent Steph a furious text (too furious for here) as Dad and Charlotte muttered darkly that the situation didn’t sound good.

At some point we walked back into the main part of the station so I’m guessing we may have found out the extent of the delay, but I can’t remember. Dad asked if it was possible to get a refund but we decided to just wait and see how things turned out. He bought me and Laura some breakfast - she had a croissant and I had a big baguette with nice sausages in it. Then they left us to it, scared that they would get a parking ticket if they waited any longer. So Laura and I said goodbye to Dad and Charlotte before they went, and we were on our own.

We headed back off to the platform to wait again. There were a few more people there now. One man had a UFO shirt on, which I started checking out – had Download been at any other time, I would have been seeing UFO at Newcastle Academy that night.

Delay update: the train was about thirty minutes late. No – forty five. I think. Yeah. No? I can’t remember. Well. It was some time late. But it arrived before it had said it would arrive. Laura and I rejoiced, whooping, as we finally got on the train. I texted Steph to let her know.

The train was really cool. I’d never been on a Cross Country one before, and I was surprised to see how modern and new it was. The seats had little digital displays over them telling you whether or not they were reserved. Laura and I settled at a table that was free for the first part of the journey so that we could do ‘The Puzzle’. This was a sixteen piece plastic jigsaw type thing that had multiple solutions, thousands of which were wrong. As the train set off I texted Dad, and we started on ‘The Puzzle’. I was amazingly bad at it. Laura was pretty good.

I was so relieved that we were finally on our way! The driver announced stuff to us, including the fact that he was going to try to make up some of the lost time.

We snacked on some of the snacks and things we’d brought as we attempted to solve ‘The Puzzle’. It was difficult.

When we approached Wakefield Westgate, we had to move because this was when our seats were supposedly reserved. We had to put ‘The Puzzle’ away because we moved to a couple of seats rather than a table, but I was glad – the damn thing had been driving me crazy!

The whole journey was about two hours, maybe a little bit less, so I can’t remember absolutely everything we talked about. The table next to us became occupied at one side, then at the other – there was a bit of confusion as to whether or not it was reserved, but it must have been OK because they all stayed there. We went through Chesterfield, and I wondered if Ste would be there but he wasn’t. Steph texted me at quarter past eleven: ‘So where are you now – nearest town? We just arrived at station.’ I replied: ‘Sheffield. Def Leppard country. We’ve just arrived now.’

I felt excited to be in the home of Def Leppard, even if it was only a brief visit.

There were a few tunnels along the way. Some of these were pretty long, and they were weird. Partway through one of them, Laura noted that it felt like we were moving forwards (we were travelling backwards). I shifted my mindset and saw she was right. But this was so confusing – my body was telling me one thing and my mind was telling me another and it was so trippy and scary and I started freaking out so I shut my eyes and tried not to think until we were out in the sunlight again. It was funny, though.

I took a photo of both of us, smiling stupidly.

I think we arrived at Derby just before twelve – the driver had managed to make up some of the time. The train started to slow down, so Laura and I stood up and headed towards a door. It wasn’t there yet, though. We were just waiting for another train to pass so we could pull into the station. We saw Steph and her mum waiting for us!

We got off the train and into the dazzling sunlight (I put on my sunglasses!) to meet them. We were all über-happy and smiley. Both of them were wearing the same Download t-shirt – it had a big skull on the front, quite different to the typical ones you generally see.

Steph advised us to go to the toilet at the station. She said there were two lots at the festival – one nasty one and one nice one, but it would still be better to use proper ones while we still could. The station toilets were really big and empty. We could hear each other clearly. Too clearly … it was actually pretty funny.

After we’d ‘made use of the facilities’ we returned to Steph’s mum and crossed the bridge out of the station. Steph started telling us some details: interesting people she’d seen, what the place was like, etc. We set off and Steph’s mum put the sat nav on. It had a rather amusing American female voice.

I tried out my (Charlotte’s) lighter on the way. My nails were too long to make this at all easy, but I managed to sort of do it with my thumb sideways. I love fire. It’s so beautiful …

There were some amazing über-roundabouts on the way there. We had fun counting the exits out loud to make sure we took the right ones.

Steph was on the lookout for ‘Download people’, and pretty soon I was too. When we arrived in Castle Donington, crowds of them emerged in their rock t-shirts and wristbands, drinking. Yes! The metal army was gathering! I love big crowds like this because you can guarantee a brilliant atmosphere.

We could hear the music as we approached Donington Park. The car joined a long queue of other cars, right beside the airport and lined up with other rockers, wearing a wide variety of interesting t-shirts and perfect for people watching! One person I particularly noted was wearing an AC/DC ‘Black Ice’ tour shirt.

Because we were going nowhere fast, I did a bit more lighter practice, waving it around out the window.

Gradually we approached the car park, passing Donington Park on the right and many more people in weird and wonderful clothes. Steph told us about various others she’d seen, including men in skirts and superhero costumes. Her mum added that it was an amazing variety of people - you get to see the expected rock t-shirts and other metal wear, yet other people wear all sorts of clothes. There were a lot in fluorescent pink and green clothes.

Eventually we were directed through the car park. We saw someone going the wrong way: Steph pointed this out - right before her mum did exactly the same thing! She’d seen a park and wasn’t going to miss it in favour of another one, further away, that she’d been instructed to go to. Because it was so packed it was a very awkward space to pull into, but when we had, Steph’s mum killed the engine and we were there!

I got out, knowing I wouldn’t have to sit in some sort of vehicle for a long while. Making sure I had everything I needed, I shut everything else in the boot before walking around a bit to stretch my legs. Once everyone was sorted, too, we set off.

We’d been warned that it was a long walk. First, we walked out of the car park. Then past a roundabout., down by a road and towards some out-of-service pedestrian crossings now taken over by officials. Steph said they sounded like drill sergeants, and she was right. Some of them certainly did, although luckily ours was nice.

Along another bit of road, then over a fence onto grass. I could see people, tents, a huge ride and stages! It was all getting so exciting - I hung back behind for a moment to take a picture of the other three walking through the trees.

I can’t remember who it was, but someone described the whole thing as being like a mass exodus, and it really was. Everyone was trekking together along the dusty track. Steph told us that by the end of the day, our snot would be black.

I heard two men with Irish accents discussing AC/DC to my left, and it was absolutely hilarious - for one, I love Irish accents, but also they were talking about support bands, and I had to laugh when one of them said “The Answer and Tin Lizzy.” Even though, because Thin Lizzy are Irish too, I guess that’s how it’s supposed to be pronounced …

When we reached the ticket office, we were redirected to the other ticket office, another good five minutes’ walk away. Steph and her mum had been through a right palaver on the Friday, and they hoped we wouldn’t have to do the same thing. It would be a long way to walk there and back again.

On the way, I saw a couple of Steel Panther shirts and fell in love with them. I hadn’t even known they existed. There was also a guy in a swine flu t-shirt that I thought was rather amusing.

When we arrived at the box office, Laura got out her card, her driver’s licence and her booking confirmation e-mail so she could pick up the tickets. This was it: crunch time. What else could go wrong today?

But Laura got the tickets with no problems. When she handed me mine, I kissed it. It felt so good to hold in my hand - my Download Sunday day ticket with a great big Def Leppard logo in the middle. My ticket to get in! Finally!

I passed through security fine. They ripped my ticket and I was in. Sadly without a wristband, but I was in. I’d done it. After so much fuss, I was officially at Download. And so was Laura, once she’d thrown away the too-big water bottle she was carrying. Mine was an OK size and I kept it, hoping I’d be able to refill it later. I gave my ticket to Laura for safekeeping in her bag, and we met Steph and her mum again to walk on.

We’d missed Stone Gods, Tesla and most of Blackstone Cherry - three bands we’d wanted to see but, according to the timetable thing Steph was wearing around her neck, BSC were still on the main stage, so we went off to see them.

It was a whole lot to take in. Crowds upon crowds of interesting people … stalls selling all manner of food and souvenirs … the sound of music drifting from the four stages … it all merged together as we headed towards the main stage.

We reached the crowd watching Blackstone Cherry and hung about at the back. I don’t know much about the band, and I don’t think any of us did - they were just someone that Steph and I were quite interested to see. We only caught their last couple of songs; they were all right. Not that great, not really bad.

I kept saying ‘I am at Download’ to myself. It still hadn’t quite registered. Now I was in, I had nothing to worry about. Not even pre-gig nerves. None of that whatsoever. Looking back, I’m actually amazed, but I guess it was a totally different concert experience to what I was used to.

Journey were on next, another band that Steph and I wanted to see. Laura was all up for going to get lunch but we told her we’d do it afterwards - the next band any of us were really bothered about seeing was ZZ Top, and they weren’t on for ages.

Dissatisfied with our bad view, I moved forward through the crowd and ended up a lot closer, right on a metal fence. To our left was that big blocky thing, whatever it’s called, that I guess works light and sound.

There were two huge screens at either side of the stage, and they were showing adverts: for bands, their gigs and their albums, but also for other random things like Supernoodles … Steph said that that advert was on all the time, and she was sick of it.

Also on the screens was a scrolling display of messages: you could text your own in but I only saw the number on there once, and I couldn’t remember it. There were some really funny ones, though – ‘BUTTSCRATCHER!’ being one of them. This was a running joke all day and apparently all weekend. Someone else had texted in about how they didn’t get it. I did. I love ‘Family Guy’. (There was also someone who’d texted in with ‘Ooh, piece of candy! Ooh, piece of candy! Ooh, piece of candy!’)

I can’t really remember how Journey came on, but they must have done, because one minute they weren’t there and the next they were. I’m not a fan of Journey simply because I’ve never really listened to them. They were good, though. Further towards the stage I could see a sea of arms in the air, belonging to hardcore fans.

I recognized the singer, Arnel Pineda, and I was sure it was from a newspaper story I’d read a while ago. Were Journey that band who’d found a new singer from a tribute band or something? I asked Steph and she wasn’t sure, but she did some research later, back home, and found that Journey had indeed been impressed by the dude’s covers, and hired him).

He asked us if we were all all right, and I guess everyone was, because they cheered. He said that they (the band) were OK too, to which a guy next to me yelled “NO ONE ASKED!” Aw. I felt bad for the dude. I got the idea that some people didn’t like him that much, judging by the general attitude displayed.

I was amazed to discover that I actually knew two of their songs! The first being, predictably, their signature song ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, and the second ‘Any Way You Want It’. Because everyone knows that song, don’t they? I was surprised when it started up – Amy and I had been listening to it a few days previously, and I had temporarily forgotten it was Journey until then. I was smiling all over my face during this; it was easy to sing along to, and a lot of fun.

Their set was over quite soon after this. Steph and her mum had really enjoyed it, and I had thought they were good too, but in a way I was glad it was over – I was hot, hungry and above all thirsty, so I was dying to get hydrated. It had come to that big stretch with no bands of interest.

We started walking back through the crowd, up towards the various stalls. I couldn’t get over how much there was to do. I’d loved to have gone in there with unlimited time and cash.

It was quite a long walk to the ones that Steph and her mum wanted to go to. Laura and I went to a typical fast foody type one, where I bought some chips. They’d run out of bottled water so I bought blackcurrant instead and drank all that pretty fast.

Steph and her mum bought some funky-looking vegetabley type things. I can’t remember what they were, but I was definitely surprised at the variety of food available.

We were sitting on the grass, right across the field from the second stage but I didn’t know who was on there. I took ages to eat my chips, even more ages than usual.

There was a huge queue of people a bit of a way from us. They were all holding huge towers of green Tuborg cups. Apparently, if you picked up a whole bunch of them off the floor and handed them in, you got free booze. Was it worth it, though? The queue really was immense…

Once we’d finished eating, I went for a quick look at some of the stalls but Steph needed to pee before we did anything else. There were apparently two sets of toilets: nice ones and horrible ones. The nice ones were in the far corner to the left of the second stage as you looked at it. We set off for those. On the way we passed the end of the very long Tuborg queue. There was a girl dressed as one of KISS but I’ve forgotten which one – she looked really cool but I bet it was bloody hot in all that make up!

We also passed a water bottle refill station which, like the recycling station, was extremely busy. It would be way easier just to buy another bottle.

The whole field was lined with stalls. Steph went to the loo and we waited, thinking about what we were going to buy. There was an ice cream van just near us – when we were done with the loos, we went straight there. Laura bought an ice cream and I bought another water bottle. There was a men-only toilet area right beside the normal toilets. I reminded Laura of her theory she came up with at Richmond Live, about the targets painted on the walls. One of these days we’re going to have to send a man in to tell us what it’s really like.

We started making our way back, this time via the stalls. There was so much awesome stuff I could have browsed for hours, but I had to restrain myself because I knew I’d never be able to afford everything I wanted. Indeed, in the first stall there was a whole bunch of vinyl. I immediately fell in love with some Bruce Dickinson and Samson singles. Next year, I am definitely camping – then I can buy tons of cool stuff on the first couple of days and lock it all in a locker.

There was all manner of rock shirts and alternative clothes. These were slightly easier to resist because the only shirt I really wanted was a Download one.

I wanted to buy Amy a present. What, though? What would she like? And what wasn’t ridiculously overpriced? In one of the tents there was a display of colourful jewellery, looking particularly pretty under UV light. I bought her a big pink ring. I thought this was funny, girly pink jewellery coming from a rock festival.

Looking at all the stalls was fun, but an immense exercise in self-control.

We saw more dressed up people, this time as aliens from ‘Alien vs. Predator’. Their costumes were brilliant. But then, even cooler (for me) we saw a guy in a Bruce Dickinson tour shirt! I debated for ages over whether or not to ask him if he was good live. I totally should’ve done. But I came over all shy, and didn’t. I of course regret it now.

Eventually we reached one of the Download stalls. Steph wanted a hoodie as well so we all stepped up. I took a long time to choose, eventually deciding on a red shirt with Dog on the front and the Download 2009 logo on the back. I didn’t want to buy one with the whole line-up on it since I wasn’t there for the Friday or the Saturday. However, the small men’s ones had already sold out, so I switched this for a ladies’ one. Laura bought the one with the Download logo and the line-up, but this stall had also run out of hoodies. We walked a bit further along to the next stall, and they didn’t have them either. She bought a giant Download poster instead. I quite fancied a Def Leppard tour shirt as well, but I decided against it: when I had more money I could buy one from the Download site afterwards. (As luck would have it, the site sold Download shirts but not band ones. I do have a normal Def Leppard shirt, though, and I guess the Download one speaks for itself).

Laura insisted she wanted a henna tattoo. There were a whole host of designs, including band logos, but the bigger they were, the more expensive they were, so Laura chose a small, twirly design.

While she was queuing, I went round the corner to see the couple of stalls opposite the Red Bull tent. There were some sun hats for sale for £8. I chose a bright pink one for my sister - due to the fact that it was still extremely hot, I put it on. I must have looked like a crime against fashion - red shirt around my neck, pink hat on my head.

It was almost time for ZZ Top. They came on just before Laura was finished, so we missed the very beginning of their set but we could sort of hear it from where we were. I don’t know much about ZZ Top, so I’m afraid this part won’t be in as much detail.

I was pretty impressed to be looking right at ZZ Top, even if we were at the back again (we had to be this time, though, because we needed to leave a bit early for Steel Panther). Just to see them in all their bearded glory was a thrill. I can’t remember their set too well. They definitely played ‘Got Me Under Pressure’ and ‘Cheap Sunglasses’. Then, a bit later, we heard the unmistakeable intro that was ‘Gimme All Your Lovin’’ and everyone went a bit mental. Who doesn’t know, and love, that song? Conscious of the time, I turned to Steph: “We should head off for Steel Panther after ‘Sharp Dressed Man’.”

You could tell everyone was really enjoying themselves. One shirtless guy to our left was giving it his all with the air guitar. I got a random high-five off a random guy with dreadlocks. Steph was jealous until I mentioned that perhaps he was just infecting me with swine flu.

Right after that, ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ started up. Steph and I laughed, and set off rocking out once again to what was perhaps the last ZZ Top song I’d ever see live. It was so awesome - these two songs always seem to feature on each and every driving album ever made, so seeing them live was a lot of fun.

Once this was over, the four of us began to wander across the field to the Tuborg tent. I texted my dad: ‘Every girl’s crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man! Xxx’. He replied with: ‘Is that right x x x hope everything ok x x x’. Going sideways through a forward facing crowd: not easy. It took us quite a while to get across, and to the other, smaller field containing the Tuborg tent. In it, among other things, were some more stalls, that great big ride which you could see from all over the festival, and the tent. Which was packed. The band before Steel Panther were just finishing, and there were people standing all around the outside as well as in. We pushed forward but only managed to reach just inside the tent. You could barely move, or see - why are rockers so tall?

We watched roadies set up the stage. Every time someone came on they received a huge cheer. Some people down the front started off a rousing chorus of ‘Asian Hooker’ - clearly a fan favourite, if a little non-PC …

We can’t have been waiting that long, but it felt like ages. I was looking forward to this band almost as much as Def Leppard. I love them. They’re amazing and hilarious.

Soon before they did actually come on, some dude (I guess he was a roadie) with a phone came on and filmed us all screaming “Panther! Panther!”. It was a pretty impressive crowd, especially considering their album ‘Feel the Steel’ had only been released six days previously.

Their entrance was made slightly less exciting by our crappy view, but still I was ecstatic when I saw Michael Starr. He looked just like on the video! There they all were, my favourite new band. Michael, Lexxi, Satchel and Stix. I raised my camera as high up as possible for some photos as they opened with ‘Eyes of a Panther’. Their least rude song, probably! They closed this with Michael, Lexxi and Satchel in a Spinal Tap-esque pose.

They talked after this. Firstly about f*cking ‘hot bitches’ … then they introduced the band. They took turns, rather politely I thought. I can’t remember who introduced Satchel, but he introduced Michael, who introduced Lexxi, who introduced Stix. I think.

They played ‘Asian Hooker’ next. Singing along felt so insanely awful and offensive, but I love the song. Again, they played it brilliantly.

Then more talking! They’re very chatty, are Steel Panther, in a very good way. I couldn’t stop laughing. Because they said quite a lot of stuff I can’t remember some of it, but one of them said they’d had sex with someone in Slipknot’s girlfriend. Someone at the front caught Michael’s attention - I didn’t hear how, but he then said something like “Let’s see YOUR boobies, bitch!” I guess some chick showed them her boobs because Michael told us all to cheer for her boobies. I love the way they talk about this stuff! They’re so immature!

And their immaturity continues in their songs. The ballad ‘Community Property’ came after this. It was really something, hearing the whole tent singing along. All together now: “But my c*ck is community property…” What a song! It’s filthy as hell, yet it sounds so nice …

Their dirty conversation continued, and this time my camera was watching. Apparently Lexxi had been voted the foxiest guy on the Sunset Strip two weeks in a row. We were asked if we found him foxy: I whopped along with the other girls. Sure he’s old and kind of ugly, but I love him because he’s so stupid it’s hilarious. But then Michael put him down: “See? All the fat ones!” Then they went on (to Lexxi) about how you shouldn’t have sex with girls in their vaginas, because they could get pregnant, and you don’t want a baby, do you?

I didn’t recognised ‘Turn Out the Lights’ until the chorus, stupidly. Another fantastic but terrible song. Terrible in the good way.

And then more talking! This time about Michael Starr. Did you know he was fifty six? He looks amazing! Probably, according to Lexxi and Satchel, due to all the plastic surgery but still. I dunno if they were being serious but he got a massive cheer.

The penultimate song was my favourite: the Bon Jovi parody ‘Party All Day (F*ck All Night). Seriously, it sounds just like ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’, except ruder and better. Just as sing-along, though. I had an absolute blast.

And one last lot of talking. About their new video, so we all knew what was coming. They praised themselves in a big way, going on about the song and the video, until they launched into it. ‘Death to All But Metal’. YES! You could tell it’s their most famous one. Everyone went mental. Hearing the song uncensored somewhere other than on the CD added to it - screaming expletives and insults to pop stars and bad bands! “Where is Def Leppard? Where is Motley Crue?” we all pleaded, sick of the terrible waves of pop-punk that always dominate the so-called ‘rock’ airwaves. Motley Crue were yesterday, and Def Leppard were going to be coming soon! Don’t worry, Steel Panther! HEAVY METAL’S BACK!

I was satisfied when they left the stage. Of course they’d only had a short slot, and a lot of that had been taken up by talking, but none of this mattered. Who cares if they exist to take the p*ss? They are a genuinely fantastic live band - extremely entertaining and terrifically talented. I’d see them again any time, hopefully with my sister. I rang her during ‘Death to All But Metal’. The message I left her was really clear.

To ensure I didn’t forget the set list, I actually wrote it all out in a text on my phone and saved it as a draft. See? I plan ahead! (OK, I may be ever so slightly obsessed with these gig logs …)

And now for the trek back to the main stage for Whitesnake. Who had already started, so the crowds were going to be hell. I heard a guy somewhere near us talking about seeing some Whitesnake, and then some Def Leppard. This is a really pointless thing to have remembered, but it built my excitement.

Because we’d come over from the Tuborg tent, we arrived quite near the front. Excellent!

The minute I saw David Coverdale, I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I ran, hoping that everyone else would catch up in due course. I was a few rows from the barrier, but quite far to the side so I couldn’t see the drum kit. It’s quite a hard view to describe, but I was thrilled that Whitesnake were right in front of my eyes.

We’d arrived during the song ‘Best Years’. Which was lucky because, as I found out when I read the set list later, that was the first song. I shifted around and settled into position, the others still behind me but in my sight when I turned around. I highly doubted they’d lose me - I was still wearing the pink hat.

Seeing Cov was the nearest I came to being starstruck all day, especially as he was so close. I’m not exactly sure why it was him that did it for me: maybe I was thinking about how my mum used to like him, according to Dad. Or maybe I was looking forward to comparing him to Joe Elliott. You always hear Leppard versus Whitesnake debates, and I was more than ready to settle them for myself.

The second song was ‘Bad Boys’, with that “Ow ow ow owww!” at the start. He did a lot of ‘ow ow ow owww’-ing, which never failed to make me laugh. He’s so posh in his shirt, (which was PRACTICALLY a blouse) buttons semi-undone, yet he still has that total rock-star thing about him. He was a very entertaining front man, at any rate. I don’t understand why everyone puts him down all the time - he’s charismatic, very funny and he still has a great voice.

Another newie: ‘ Can You Hear the Wind Blow’, probably my favourite track from ‘Good to Be Bad’. I felt proud of myself for remembering how a lot of the songs went: I’d been scared I’d blank completely and, like a poser, only manage to sing ‘Here I Go Again’.

I really felt the atmosphere as they started ‘Love Ain’t No Stranger’. I’m getting cold shivers listening to it now - I don’t remember much about it except for the crowd all singing together.

And then for my favourite one: ‘Guilty of Love’! However, as I was still a relatively fresh Whitesnake fan, I didn’t take it in enough to remember it properly. I’m kicking myself now, I can assure you. But I did film quite a bit of it, to my delight on finding this out the other night. I do remember singing the chorus, though; in fact, I think Cov made us sing it ourselves, over and over again … which was great and all, but kind of tiring - and we’d paid to see HIM sing!

The next newie needed no introduction. ‘Lay Down Your Love’ … the first line is “Lay down your love”, for crying out loud! Then yet another song with the word ‘love’ in the title: ‘ The Deeper the Love’. Though with Whitesnake, that is not unusual. I wish I could remember more details about the songs! I’ll come to the ones still in my mind at the end.

If I have a least favourite Whitesnake song, I have no doubt that this is it: ‘Is This Love’. Listen to this: the first time I remember actually listening to it was in the car on the way out somewhere. I was right in the back so I couldn’t hear the radio very well, but what I could hear didn’t greatly impress me. “What’s this? It sounds like Whitesnake but gay,” I remarked about the current song. Of course, when it ended the DJ told me it had been ‘Is This Love’ by – aha - Whitesnake. Despite this, I enjoyed their performance of it. At least its ‘radioness’ meant that everyone was singing along. Cov (I just can’t call him ‘David’! He’s not a ‘David’! It’s either ‘Cov’ or ‘David Coverdale’!) came to the side of the stage right in front of us to direct us in some singing. I filmed a bit of it. He did this a lot, to my utter delight – lots of great photo opportunities and, of course, the possibility that he looked at me … he might have done … I did have that hat on, after all …

Looking back, I’m surprised at just how much stuff they played from ‘Good to Be Bad’. ‘Got What You Need’ followed ‘Is This Love’ but, try as I might, I can’t get back ‘in the zone’ and I appear to have forgotten seeing it live.

I can remember ‘Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City’ pretty well, though – probably due to the fact that Cov took this opportunity to lead us all in another über-sing-a-thon, draining the energy from our voices and from our waving arms.

‘Give Me All Your Love’ brought the tempo back up again, one of those rock songs that you can almost dance to, should the occasion arise. I liked this one - it was a fun live number.

And after this, it was time for all of the posers to go crazy to ‘Here I Go Again’. No edited-down compilation or radio versions here - this was, after all, the genuine article, so it was done properly with the cold-shivery intro that still chokes me up now because it’s so, so good. Of course, I mentioned before that I was a relatively new Whitesnake fan, so at this point this was still the song I knew best. I went mad. I’ve never been able to listen to another album of driving songs in the same way since.

Sadly, the next song was their last. ‘Still of the Night’, though, was a good one to go out on. I always find it really difficult to sing along to - for some reason I can never seem to get my mouth around the words - so I chilled, letting everyone else do the hard work and showing my appreciation by screaming the bits I could do properly.

The end! Whitesnake left the stage, their set over. No encore - I suppose festivals are on tight schedules, so you generally don’t get the chance to do one unless you’re a headliner. I guess that’s also the beauty of festivals - when a band goes off, you don’t have to be sad! Unless, of course, it’s the headliner … on the last day …

OK. I’ll admit that Whitesnake recount was shite, and did not do justice to their set, but there was a lot going on that day! You can’t blame me for missing some of the finer details!

Some of them, however, are here.

Everyone knows that David Coverdale is kind of posh. Yet I was still surprised by just how classy he was! When he spoke - and he did a lot of that - I kept smiling to myself. You’d never know he comes from my neck of the woods. I talk like a right scruff compared to him. (Mind you, I talk like a right scruff anyway!) At one break between songs we could hear music from the second stage. “Who’s that?” he asked, dancing; “I’m getting down!” He sounds even funnier when he tries to sound cool.

As well as a few photos I managed to get three videos - one of David Coverdale really near to us during ‘Is This Love’, one of the bass player, Uriah Duffy, doing the same during a slowie but I can’t tell which one, and the one I mentioned of ‘Guilty of Love’.

Cov talking! Yes … we’ve got to have some of that in here, haven’t we?

Before one of the ‘Slide It In’ songs - can someone drop me a line if they can remember which - he was on about the album, its anniversary and how they were “still sliding it in” after all these years. Somehow, the accompanying gesture he did here didn’t look that wrong. He can just carry that stuff off, you know?

I think he looks sort of like a cross between Alice Cooper and Roger Daltrey. I don’t know what anyone else thinks, but he’s sort of like … if men could have children … oh well.

I know tons of people reckon that Cov is past it and his performances are embarrassing. I can now officially wonder what the hell these people are on about. At some points I thought he was miming, but he swears he will never do that and after studying and listening hard, I noticed that sometimes the backing singing sounded quite similar to his so that was what probably sounded a bit strange. I honestly can’t understand why people put him down.

And when one of the guitarists needed to sit down with an acoustic guitar, he expressed his jealousy as he still had to stand up. A man near me joked about how he had probably put a hip out moving what he called the ‘good bar stool’ - and I laughed, kind of meanly, I guess. He’s not THAT old!

Overall, I’d rate Whitesnake very highly. I didn’t appreciate them as much at the time, but looking back I’ve realised how good they were. The only problem I had was a long guitar duel - no one loves epic guitar solos more than I do, but this just got ridiculous. Perhaps Cov was busy taking a … no. Aside from that, David Coverdale is a natural born showman. If I was a sophisticated yet rock ‘n’ roll middle aged woman, I could understand why people fancy him.

Someone near to me asked how long it was until Def Leppard came on. It would be a forty-five minute wait. “D’you reckon people will wait that long?” this woman asked. Her friend thought they would. I knew I would. I wasn’t giving up this place for anything! I could see the barrier … I counted the rows of people in front of me. I was five away from the barrier! In a festival crowd! And I’d thought I’d get stuck at the back …

I could no longer see Steph, her mum or Laura, though, which had me slightly worried. I checked my phone. The battery was scarily low. I had a text from Steph: ‘We’re heading over to second stage to see Papa Roach’. All right - I wasn’t bothered about missing them, more about losing my friends.

So I waited. Alone.

I’d expected more adverts on the big screens, but instead they started playing music, like at a regular concert. To my über-delight, the first song was ‘What Do You Do For Money Honey’. AC/DC! I whipped out my little notebook and wrote this down. I didn’t get any autographs, but I did make a list of these songs so I didn’t forget them later. A lot of people were singing along to this one. I heard some people discussing the merits of various AC/DC albums.

The next song sadly drew even more attention: Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘Ruby’. I couldn’t believe that was being played at Download! Shouldn’t that be at Leeds or Reading? Still, I wrote it down. I must have looked strange to the crowds of people around me. There was a guy about my age next to me. (I’d moved even further across so I could see the drum kit. I HAD to see it.) He was really cool - he had long hair and an ‘Appetite for Destruction’ shirt.

There were bottles flying everywhere and various inflatables too. It was rather exhilarating to be right in the midst of it all! I’d only ever looked at it from above before. I’d never had to duck away from the damn things … and I’d certainly never JOINED IN! Yeah! That’s right, the cool guy got me to throw my first bottle in a bottle fight! He kept getting hit by them - in fact, I think his head was a bottle magnet - and he kept picking them up off the ground to throw back. I offered him mine - it was actually an excuse to talk to him (I can be quite shy, weirdly) and it was a means of getting rid of my empty bottle. But he suggested I do it, so I did! Badly … but I threw it! We laughed. I liked the guy. I wish I’d talked to him more. If you are that guy, please drop me a comment.

‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’ was on next. Everyone knew that, so everyone sang along. The high notes sounded hilarious, attempted by a crowd of drunk men. Then it was, and I quote myself from my little notebook, ‘Something Zeppeliny?’ I didn’t know it. And I didn’t know the next one, either. But then they played a bit of classic Stones - ‘Start Me Up’. And then ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’. A lot of people sang along to that. I was actually pretty impressed with the selection of between-band music overall, especially as I’d been expecting more adverts.

And I grew happier still when more AC/DC came on! This time ‘For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)’. I wished I’d worn my AC/DC shirt for a moment, until I reassured myself that singing along word-for-word to both songs was proof enough of my immense AC/DC fandom.

It was another great sing-along song. Everyone was ready to rock! I kept turning to look at the crowd - a hell of a lot of people but still no sign of Laura, Steph or her mum. Because my phone battery was so dangerously low, I actually wrote Steph’s mobile number in the little book in case I had to borrow someone else’s.

I was getting all geared up for the last part of the song: the part that has all the ‘for those about to rock - FIRE!’ lines in it. I think everyone was. It was a great song to play over the sound system. The ideal song, perhaps …

But then, right before we were all due to scream “FIRE!”, the music cut out. It drew huge gasps from us all. “WHAT?” we cried, outraged. We’d just been getting into it! It was just coming up to the best bit!

Of course, for a second none of us considered the reason why the music had stopped …

The lights on the stage darkened. The big screen behind the stage came on, showing a video. A very patriotic video, with loads of images of Britishy things and the band through the ages and song names, all set to ‘God Save the Queen’ … and then some really fast guitar into music! I couldn’t see too well from the angle I was at but I got the gist. It reached a climax with the words ‘The Sparkle Lounge’ written across red curtains as the band sprang on-stage.

“Guitar!” Joe Elliott yelled, “Drums!”

I freaked. Not only could I see Rick Allen behind the drums, they were also opening with my favourite song! How happy was I … hopefully it would set the mood for the rest of the night. I sang along with everyone else: “Ah-ah-ah, aah-aah-ah … ooh-ooh-oh, ooh-oh-oh …” I made absolutely sure I had my camera out to film a good deal of this. I adore this song. Absolutely adore it. Everyone else seemed to as well: on the line ‘satellite of love’, we all forgot about singing well and in tune for favour of singing as loudly as possible. As it was the first song, I also had a lot to take in … wow, Joe Elliott got fat … ha, Phil Collen never changes - ooh, he’s got his shirt off. He’s looking good … that was the sort of stuff going through my head. But, most of all, I was psyched to be seeing Rick Allen, perhaps my favourite drummer, live.

I was actually pretty sad when it was over. What could possibly follow my favourite Def Leppard song? Their version of ‘Action’, that’s what. I do like the original by Sweet but I think I prefer Leppard’s. It was clear that everybody was already having the time of their lives, singing and dancing along.

I noticed quite soon that Joe’s voice isn’t what it used to be, which is a shame. He’s hardly old, I hope it doesn’t burn out before its time. There is something he can do to improve himself apart from that, though - sort out his hair! He looks ridiculous!

The next song came from the Sparkle Lounge: C’mon C’mon . The screen at the back showed all the characters from the album cover dancing around to the music, sort of like all of us. I’m never sure how many ‘c’mon’s there are so I bet I looked like an absolute fool trying to sing along but it was a great song. Joe came towards us during this. We all leaned towards him like flowers towards the sun - there was a great big camera really near to us, filming virtually all through the set, and we were all dying to be on it as much as possible. Especially when looking cool in front of rock stars. I was very conscious of the camera at all times. And this song proved that, although bands change, their core awesomeness can remain. Leppard’s certainly does.

‘Make Love Like a Man’ followed. A song that always amuses me, and really cheers me up. I listened to it a lot the day after Michael Jackson died. There wasn’t a single person I could see without a smile on their face. “I’m a man - that’s what I am.” Is that the best Leppard lyric ever written? Perhaps it is …

Right at the end, Joe held on a second before singing the final line, so everyone sang it before he did. Hahaha!

This is strange. I found the set list on the Internet afterwards because I couldn’t remember it in order, and it says that here they played ‘Too Late For Love’. I don’t remember this - I don’t know this song and I’m pretty sure I knew all the ones they played. Oh well. We’ll skip that for now …

The big screen kept switching between band members. A few times, there were close-ups of Rick Allen’s feet - of course, he drums barefoot, so I freaked! As much as I love Rick, I hate feet. Especially giant ones right in front of my face.

I knew the next song, though. ‘Nine Lives’, again from ‘Songs From the Sparkle Lounge’, and one of my favourite tracks on the album. And, as the chorus is slightly more straightforward than ‘C’mon C’mon’ I managed to sing along more successfully. And then we dipped back into ‘Hysteria’ for ‘Love Bites’. (Laura told me afterwards that she’d yelled “YES! It’s the song I’ve had in my head all day!“ and this guy had laughed.) I’d promised myself I’d wave the lighter for this. In fact, this song was the sole reason I’d borrowed it off Charlotte. I pulled it out, held it in the air and prepared to wave it. Lighting it was difficult due to my long nails, keeping it lit was hard due to a slight breeze, and waving it was hard due to all the arms in the air. I didn’t want to burn anyone. So although I can now say I did lighter-waving at a concert, it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be. Despite this, I loved the rendition of this epic rock ballad.

Sav stepped up for a bass solo. (I love him as well!) I’d read about this from last year’s tour with Whitesnake, but as the set hadn’t been the same so far I’d dismissed it. Of course, that meant that the next song was ‘Rock On’. I didn’t know it as such, but I knew of it so it wasn’t hard to pick up. I also knew it was a David Essex cover. I was surprised, therefore, that it was actually quite a good song.

Joe donned an acoustic guitar to join in for ‘Two Steps Behind’. He’d also changed clothes at some point before this - I have pictures of him in about three different outfits, including a red shirt, a darker shirt and what looked like a light blue denim jacket. And so began two chilled out numbers: the classic ode to stalkers, and then ‘Bringin’ on the Heartbreak’, my favourite of the two, made slightly more rock ‘n’ roll by the absence of the ‘g’ in the title. I love how Joe pronounces the word ‘taking’ as ‘tayking’ in this song too…

It was dark. It’s funny how it hits you, isn’t it? It happens so gradually that you don’t notice it, then suddenly you realise it’s night time. It was a nice temperature without the glaring sun. I took off my sunglasses - finally! - and stuck them on my head, under my hat. I kept that on. I didn’t want to hold it, and the camera was still rolling. I wanted to be seen!

I can’t remember ‘Switch 625’ either. At all.

I remember ‘Hysteria’ though. In fact, it’s stuck in my memory better than most songs. Because I’d recently been thinking about how awesome it would be to have it as the end-credits song in the inevitable movie adaptation of my amazing yet unfinished novel, I couldn’t get two of my characters out of my head. Which was sort of annoying but it didn’t stop me joining in loudly and enthusiastically. It’s one of my favourite of their ballads, if you will. Maybe it’s a bit too rocky to be one of those, maybe not. Whatever it is, I filmed some of it, and loved it.

I filmed some of the next one too: ‘Animal’. They were getting into all the well-known stuff, which more often than not means that a set is coming to an end. Consequently I was determined to enjoy myself even more. During the video I made here, this thing that was probably a woman but looked a bit like a man started crowd surfing. (S)he was passed over the barrier where the security guards took care of him/her. I’m not sure how, though …

And then it was ‘Armageddon It’. Another great one to scream the chorus of. I noted an observation about one of the lyrics. Does anyone else find this strange …? Before the chorus, there’s the line ‘Gimme all of your loving’. Whitesnake have a song called ‘Give Me All Your Love’. And ZZ Top, of course, have ‘Gimme All Your Lovin’’. Coincidence?

I felt a bit sad when it came to the part where, on the album, Joe said “C’mon, Steve, get it!” (Or rather “C’mown, Steve, geddit!”) I paid close attention to what he said instead - I think he went to Viv and said “C’mon, boy …” Aww. Poor Steve.

Another classic: ‘Photograph’. When I listen to Def Leppard now, this is the song that reminds me most of Download. I just remember it so clearly: singing “Photograaaph…” with the crowd. I can see the guy who was next to me now, in my head. (He was so cool! Why didn‘t I befriend him?)

An unmistakable opening line: “Love is like a bomb …” Sure, it’s the opening on the ‘Best Of’ album as opposed to ‘Hysteria’ but who cares? It echoed as the guitars joined in, and so began arguably their most famous song. I’d promised Amy I’d ring her during it, but try as I might I couldn’t get a signal.

OK. It’s time for me to write about something I haven’t mentioned yet, but probably should’ve. A while before Download, Laura and I decided we totally had to pour sugar all over each other during ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’. So Amy gave me three little sachets for easy carryability, and they had been waiting in my pockets, crumpled and squashed, all day. For their moment in the spotlight. For their time to shine.

Of course, I was alone. No Laura, no Steph, no Steph’s mum.

So what the hell did I do?

I poured sugar … on myself.

Yep, you read it right. You can’t imagine how much of a retard I felt - filming the chorus with my camera balanced in one hand while emptying three small packets of sugar on myself with the other. But I knew that if I didn’t do it, I’d regret it like mad afterwards. I mean, I still regret not dancing like an Egyptian to ‘Powerslave’! So I did it. And I’m proud.

A little later, a random guy from the other side of the barrier started handing out free picks. Oh, the joys of being down the front! I got a thing from a concert! The pick was one of those ‘Chicks on Picks’ ones, with a picture of a girl and the words ‘drop dead sexy’ on it.

Then after this, Joe talked to us! This was strange, because as he confessed, he doesn’t do much talking on-stage. I’ve listened to this speech so much since that I should know it by heart. But I don’t. So I’m listening to it again as I’m writing.

“We don’t really say much when we’re on-stage, we just let the music do the talking,” he said, “But it occurred to me the other night when we were starting the tour off in Dublin, where we’d actually been, and where we’d actually arrived at. And it’s twenty three years since we last played here. Where we were third on the bill to Ozzy and the Scorps, and we had the great experience of playing with people like Motörhead and Bad News.”

Rick punctuated this with a couple of whacks on the drums.

“But, er - what you’ve got to remember about what happened twenty three years ago is this. Rick Allen.”

Oh my God. Of course, everyone knew exactly what was meant by this. Also - he was talking about Rick! I got really excited. I absolutely love him and so jumped at the chance to show him some extra appreciation, as did everyone else. Joe let us cheer him for a bit. Where I was, chants of “Rick! Rick! Rick!” started up. The reaction was immense. Every single person there was genuine in their applause. You could tell just how loved he is.

“You see the hairs on my arms? They’re up, man, just like they were in 1986. It was one year before we released the ‘Hysteria’ album. There we were, we weren’t really sure what was gonna go on. But he’d fought his way back from a terrific injury. And everybody here - which we totally appreciate it wasn’t everybody here, but this was the spiritual rebirth of this boy at the back.” More screams. “It’ll always be Donington to us. Make some noise for Rick Allen, will ya!”

So we went insane. Again. Screaming for perhaps the most inspiring and courageous person in rock, standing behind the drum kit and taking in the thousands of people who were there for him. I looked behind me. It was a hell of a lot of people …

Pretty soon, he sat down. “Stand up again, man, this is never gonna happen again, come on!” Joe urged him, so he got to his feet once more, smiling out at the still-going-beserk crowd. It looked as though the sheer emotion of the whole thing was starting to get to him, and I have to say, it was no surprise. I still feel honoured to have been part of such a special moment. It was very moving - definitely the closest I’ve ever come to crying at a gig. “It’s the human spirit winning over anything,” said Joe proudly, as Rick was projected to the whole festival on the giant screens. He looked as though he was fighting back tears. Which, we soon discovered, he was: after a moment, he started wiping his eyes. “Aw, he’s crying, bless him!” cooed a woman in front of me to her friend.

Bless him indeed. If I was in that position, I’d be in tears too. Imagine - seventy five thousand odd people supporting you, yelling your name, because they’re on your side and they simply worship you.

“So before he starts f*cking blubbing all over his cymbals …” Joe said finally, clearly having not noticed what was going on behind him. He turned around to look at his drummer, “Which I think he already is doing - I’m sorry Rick, I had to do it, mate - he’s gonna introduce this next song. And it goes something like this.”

“GUNTHER GLIEBEN GLAUCHEN GLOBEN!”

It took us about a half-second to join in with this intro. It was funny - it sounded like Rick had said it, but obviously Joe had meant he was introducing it on the drums.

So, deep emotional moment over, we went all rock ‘n’ roll again for ‘Rock of Ages’. Rock of ages … still rolling. And it’s never going to stop, if we have anything to do with it! What an anthem to close such a massive rock gathering - yep, close it. I think after this song, they all gathered for a photo. “Smile!” Joe told us, as they turned their backs to the crowd. Then he told us we looked lovely, and they left the stage. (But this might have been some other time, I’m unsure.)

If I’d had a watch and a bill, I would have known that they were coming back for an encore: it was quarter past ten, and the set was due to end at half past. As it was, I had neither so I could only guess. I based my guess on the fact that they hadn’t played ‘Let’s Get Rocked’. How could they leave without doing that?

Even so, I was pleasantly surprised when they returned to the stage, as you should be at encores. (You have to remember this was my first festival, and I wasn’t sure how they worked yet!)

Joe welcomed keyboardist Dick Decent to the stage before they started up again with the (actually quite nice) ballad ‘When Love and Hate Collide’. However, the sound was down, so getting him on seemed pretty pointless…

When Dick left, Joe said he had one last question to ask us. We knew what it was. We asked it with him.

“Do ya wanna get rocked?”

THERE we go! The set was complete! We got down for some hard rocking again, singing along to all the words for what we knew would be the last time. Still, singing about getting rocked was possibly the most appropriate song to finish on. For those few minutes we forgot what was coming the next day. We forgot about work. We forgot about school. Screw mowing the lawn, walking the dog, taking out the trash, and tidying our room. It really did feel like a seven day weekend.

“See you next time - and there will be a next time - “ Joe assured us, before Def Leppard exited the stage for the second and last time. We knew that this year’s Download festival had ended on a real high.

And now to find the others …

The masses were starting to move. The panic settling in, I turned round. How the hell would I be able to see them in all this?

Hang on -

“SARAH!”

Laura was right there! Holding out her arm towards me somewhere behind me, to my left: I pushed through the crowd to grab her hand and when I reached her we hugged, screaming and high on Leppard loveage. Steph and her mum were right behind her and together we set off.

Moving felt really strange, having stood and watched two bands. Especially as I’d spent half of the last one staring at bright lights in the dark, and now my eyes were adjusting to the night properly.

‘We’ll Meet Again’ was playing over the sound system. Despite not having had any booze all day I felt weirdly drunk, and sang along loudly.

We passed a random guy peeing on the floor. Yeah, right on the ground. He was just half-kneeling, in the middle of the field, with everything on display. It was rather disgusting.

We talked a bit about the bands we’d just seen. I asked them about Papa Roach but they hadn’t got near enough to see them properly, making me still more glad I’d stayed where I was.

I chanced turning my phone on to text Amy: ‘Last band just off. I nearly cried at def leppard. Joe made rick cry. It was so funny but really sweet. Xxx’ and Dad. He’d texted me asking if I could see anything of the track. I replied: ‘No, all the signs but no track and no spitfire. Def leppard were amazing. Just on the way out now. Xxx’.

As we reached the dusty road, random cheers erupted and kept sweeping through the crowd like Mexican waves. I can’t think of any reason for this except that we were all so happy. One of the guys in fluorescent yellow yelled “Did you enjoy it?” We cheered. “Are you all coming back next year?” We cheered again. Try and stop me! I’m saving up already!

It was that long walk again, with a few differences: we were going the wrong way, we weren’t sweating in sweltering sunlight, and there were even more people. We talked Def Leppard virtually the whole way.

One of the first things we did when we got in the car was blew our noses. We all shut up for a second, our chatter replaced by snorts - until we realised how funny that sounded and started laughing. True to what Steph had said earlier, my snot was flecked with black. Ah, the dustiness of Donington …

Conversation, as we set off, turned back to the show. Steph’s mum asked about the whole Rick thing - it happened years ago, why was he crying about it now? Laura and I, both huge Rickfans, started cooing over it, and explained why in our own words.

Leaving was hell. Complete and utter hell. We were sitting virtually stationary for an insanely long time. It was just so difficult to get out of the car park, when everyone else was trying to do the same thing at the same time. And everyone was out for themselves! By the time we were finally on the road, we were sick of selfish drivers.

Cruising along (fairly slowly at first - it took a while for the business to subside) in the car was pretty hot - it had been in the sun all day, after all - so we wound down the windows to let in some of the fresh air and what was left of the atmospheric buzz. Posters for Sonisphere lined the road out, no doubt trying to attract the Download crowd. No chance for me - Metallica were headlining and I can’t stand them. Plus it’s at Knebworth. How dare they try to outdo the mighty Donington, anyway?

We were heading to Loughborough now. When we got there we passed the university where Laura’s brother Stuart was at. I asked why he hadn’t been at the festival - a while ago, me and him had actually reprimanded Laura for not liking Def Leppard (How people change, eh?) - and she replied that he was a student, and probably couldn’t afford it.

I was just getting comfy in the car when we arrived at Samantha’s (Steph’s cousin’s) house. Her family were all in bed, so we had to chill out a bit and keep very quiet.

The four of us were sleeping downstairs in the kitchen/living room. My sleeping stuff was all there waiting for me, and Samantha had very kindly put down airbeds for me and Laura. I got changed inside my sleeping bag - Steph took a photo of me looking like a giant red sausage - before creeping upstairs to use the loo. I was so tired, and frightened of disturbing anyone, that I didn’t wash or brush my teeth or anything. Consequently I felt extremely mucky as I settled down to sleep. I’d taken a wipe to my face in the car, but my hair was all stiff and sticky and I was dying for a shower. Not that I really cared. I felt so rock ‘n’ roll.

Although Laura and I whispered about Def Leppard for a few minutes, we soon fell asleep. I was hoping to dream about the festival but I didn’t dream at all, which was a shame. I’d thought I would, though - I couldn’t get the image of Rick Allen welling up with emotion out of my head. Except for a few interruptions from the (gorgeous and extremely fluffy) cat, Sidney, I slept well.

I woke up once when Samantha’s husband, Alex, came downstairs and left for work, but fell asleep again before we had to get up for real.

And that’s sort of it. However, because for me Download was a whole trip, I’ll finish it off properly.

Samantha was really nice. We met her, her daughter Daisy and briefly her son Sky. We didn’t stay very long though; it was, of course, a Monday, and we were about the only people in the country not going to work or school. I hope to see them again - it was a shame we didn’t get to talk for very long, because Samantha was a very interesting person. Once we were ready, and had said goodbye to everyone, we set off. I was wearing my new shirt. The red did not go with the dark blue on my nails …

Steph’s mum had the idea of going to Sainsbury’s for breakfast, which I liked very much. Steph took ages to decide what to have. She was being hilariously fussy. All she wanted was hash browns, so she got a vegetarian breakfast and ordered an extra one with it. I had a sausage sandwich and juice. And, when I ran out of juice to wash down the breadiness with I grabbed a couple of little milks. Instead of plastic pots, they were in tubes called ‘Dairy Sticks’. Me and Laura found these hilarious.

Steph’s mum told us about the song ‘Rock On’. She said she’d thought their version of it was really good - she thought the song was a good one, but according to her David Essex couldn’t sing! (I’m only not agreeing with her because I’ve never heard him!)

I had ‘Rocket’ in my head, and kept singing it. This transferred it to Laura and Steph, who told me it used to be on Formula One, and whenever she heard it she thought of race cars.

Some people with Download wristbands passed the window. As did a woman in bright green jeans, who somehow managed to make them look really boring … I would have rocked them so hard!

After breakfast, we left. For home for real, this time. Steph plugged her mp3 player into her radio unit and we listened to her eclectic variety of music - Jimi Hendrix, Sean Paul, Gwen Stefani, Bob Marley, Guns N’ Roses, Hot Leg and Love were all artists that featured. We saw a car pass us with a Download camp sign, an Eddie Stobart truck (but I can’t remember what its name was!) and a whole bunch of traffic cones. Steph wants to steal one one day. I must admit, it would be cool …

I was dropped off first. It felt so dull and dreamy back in grey, miserable N------------ as I said goodbye to everyone and thanked Steph’s mum for breakfast. Waving goodbye, the depression settled in. Life is not a concert. Not for ordinary people like me, anyway. Nana was inside, with Auntie Pat. I said hi to them, explained where I had been, why I wasn’t at school, and went off upstairs to shower and start to adjust to normality again. Even though I was skiving school, I had to go to work. Things just felt so strange. It didn’t help that it started raining too. From a sunny festival to the dreary real world. Eurgh. Still, I had a lot of things to tell my family and friends, virtually none of whom had been to a festival before. So I kept the magic going.

Since Download, I have realised just how fantastic a band Def Leppard are. I know it was a big day, with a lot of bands, but they are the one that stuck out the most for me. I was a fan before I saw them, (of course, otherwise I wouldn’t’ve bothered going to see them!) but now I am an über-fan. They climbed several rungs up my ladder of favourite bands that night, and are there with the likes of AC/DC, Iron Maiden and Guns N’ Roses. Even though my musical horizons were greatly broadened with the variety of top class rock acts available to me, Leppard’s performance was the highlight of my day.

And there was a highlight of Leppard’s performance that I will never forget.

Rick Allen, you are a living legend. It’s people like you who make rock the superior music genre.

Notes

* I finished the first draft of this on Thursday, 30th July and the second draft on the Friday. Only took me forty-six/forty-seven days, then …

* We later found out that Brian May and KK Downing watched Def Leppard from the side of the stage. I think I might have seen them.

* On the big screen there was also a texted-in joke about ‘bad rope liquorice’. Hehe …

* I got a few photos of Joe Elliott when he came across to where we were. I can’t remember when exactly, but it was dark and he was dark and he was wearing a red shirt.

* I don’t endorse Steel Panther’s opinions, I just love their music.

AC/DC Manchester Evening News Arena, 21.4.09

2009-05-19T13:51:00.002+01:00

I am insanely happy right now. I thought I’d be all gloomy and depressed but I’m not at all. Seriously. I’m high on awesomeness.

It’s Wednesday, 22nd April (2nd draft: Sunday, 3rd May) and I’m in form, wearing my shiny new AC/DC shirt, looking at my shiny new AC/DC horns, using a pen from my relatively old AC/DC pencil case, and listening to AC/DC.

You wouldn’t think I’d be so happy, though. Not after all the nerves, and the usual post-gig blues you’re meant to get. Oh well.

I woke up to The Answer’s album ‘Rise’ at about twenty past six, as is normal for a school day. Yep, the 21st was the first day back at college after Easter, which was a bit of a pain but can’t be helped.

I’d had a rubbish night’s sleep due to a mixture of excitement and a noisy owl, so I was pretty tired, but the excitement again made me get up. However, I’d been really nervous for ages beforehand. Yes. I know I’m a loser, but I always get nervous, and this time was particularly bad. My main worry was fainting at the sight of my heroes. Deep down, I knew I’d be fine. I just always get paranoid like that.

I got dressed in black and red underwear, my stripy purple Fat Face socks, my ‘British Steel’ shirt and black cut-off jeans that I’d bought from York especially for the show (I’d been looking everywhere for some for ages, and in the end I actually got them from M&S. They cost fifteen quid which was more than I’d wanted to pay, but I guess I’ll use them a lot in the summer.) I’d be coming home early to get changed.

Nervousness prevented me from eating a decent breakfast, so I settled for a mixture of chocolate and rice crispies that I’d made the night before out of leftover chocolate fountain chocolate. Dad caught me eating this, though, and told me to eat something decent. I said I would before he went to work, but I don’t think I did. I just couldn’t bring myself to eat properly, so I drank instead. Juice and water, not alcohol!

I put on my AC/DC patch covered denim jacket and Iron Maiden Vans to go in. I looked like a walking advertisement for rock bands and I probably sounded like one too, with my loud music. Nana told me to have a good day and night, knowing where I was off to.

I was on time for once, so instead of meeting my friends where they usually waited, I went to Grace’s house. I hadn’t seen her since she went to Berlin, so I had her Easter present – a baby windmill – and she had mine – a Berlin pen and pencil, and an AC/DC patch! It was cool, a black and white ‘Highway to Hell’ cover. (Yesterday, 4th May, I added it to my jacket). This naturally sparked off AC/DC conversation. I asked if she wanted me to ring her during a song and she said yes. She wanted ‘Touch Too Much’ but I knew they wouldn’t play that. To be honest I don’t think they’ve ever played it, which sucks because it’s my second-favourite song of theirs. So I promised her her second choice, ‘Shoot to Thrill’, which I knew they’d do.

When Beth arrived I practically screamd “Hi Beth!” at her. She was taken aback, saying I sounded excited. I replied with “Of course I’m excited, I’m going to see my favourite band tonight!” I think she’d forgotten, but she remembered then.

Having not seen each other for a while, we caught up on the way to Laura’s. I did go on about the concert, but not for too long, and Grace told us a bit about her time in Germany.

We waited outside Laura’s door as usual for Laura to be ready and Steph to arrive. I think that Steph arrived first. I told her I’d be leaving her in Media, not that she wasn’t already fully aware, and she said she knew. When Laura came outside, she took one look at me and said, in a high-pitched, somewhat sarcastic voice, “So, does anyone have anything on tonight?”

We went to college (sadly) and split off to go to form. I wrote a bit of ‘Wine Girl Story’ – ironically they were on their way to a concert, but a Maiden one – and Mr Marshall came over to see what I was up to. I spent about five minutes trying to convince him NOT to read it, especially not out loud and to the whole form. I also remember hearing Slaney make a joke about someone, to someone else, saying “Does she mate with men, then eat them?” I knew this stemmed from a quote from something or other so I asked, and he told me it was from ‘The Simpsons’ where Marge goes mad. Ah, yes. That was funny…

First lesson was Ethics. I think Jonesy looked at my shirt but he didn’t say anything. We started a new, and our last, topic about war and justice, and we talked about what ‘just war’ was.

I had a free second. Steph and Grace both met me outside my lesson – Grace’s teacher was off so she was free too. Ellan was also there, waiting to be in the classroom I’d just been in. I had her Easter present too. When I gave it to her she was playing with it straight away, like Grace had been, before she went into her lesson.

I needed to go to Tesco for some cash, so I got Steph and Grace to come with me. I was chattering all the way – mainly realising all the little bits and pieces I was going to see that night, such as “Oh my God I’m gonna see giant inflatable Rosie!” I told Steph about the time I actually found the giant inflatable woman company on the Internet and she said she’d found them before too. Imagine having that as a job!

When we got to Tesco I got out £100. It sounds a lot but I know how expensive merch can be, and I wanted quite a lot as I knew there’d be some cool stuff there. I felt kind of weird carrying so much on my person - £50 in each little button pocket. At least if anyone tried to nick it I could call them a pervert.

We had a quick look in Tesco to see if there were any decent CDs. There weren’t – probably a good thing as I would’ve just ended up buying them! ‘Black Ice’ was on the chart at about number thirty six, but it had sold out. We soon got bored and went off to Becky’s house, where Becky, Beth, Chloë and Laura were sitting. Laura was there because she would’ve had the same lesson as Grace. She asked where we’d been. When I told her I’d been to get cash for tonight, Becky looked at me questioningly, and I explained where I was going. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t raved on about it enough for everyone to remember!

Having eaten a really stupid breakfast I was hungry. The house had been fairly understocked so my lunch was equally stupid. I ate some of it then – a Cadbury’s caramel egg and a Mars Bar. I also asked if we were watching anything at lunch, because I’d intended to bring ‘Twilight’ but forgotten. It was OK – Chloë had brought ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, an overly-epic, cheesy film that’s good when you’re about ten. Still, it’s better than the original, with the out-of-synch Aslan and the people dressed as beavers…

Third lesson was French. I didn’t have to hand in any homework (yet) which was great because I hadn’t done any. Although it was a Mrs Kiernan lesson, Mrs Lewis’ daughter came in to help us with our speaking. Laura and me went out together towards the end of the lesson to talk about music. I was asked if I’d been to any concerts. I told her that last summer I’d seen Iron Maiden, that Laura was jealous of this, and that that night I was going to see AC/DC.

At lunch, we did watch ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. But no one really paid attention. Sometimes, we just talk loads, more than usual that day because of the holidays. I didn’t eat much lunch – damn excitement – I just ate a cheese sandwich and a cereal bar.

Fourth lesson for me was last. I was itching to be out all through English, knowing that as soon as it was over I’d be able to just walk out of college. Sarah has this thing where she always thinks fourth lesson Tuesday is last. Well, I explained, today it was. For me, anyway! We did about synonyms and pragmatics and stuff. For once I couldn’t care less. When the bell went Sarah told me to have a good time, and I went straight off. No Media!

When I went out of the main entrance, the first thing I saw was Grace coming towards me. Then I heard “Sarah!” and Laura was to my left. She came and hugged me, which was kind of random for her until she explained that it was a hug to give to Angus. I said I wouldn’t get that close, no matter how desperate I was to get covered in Angus-sweat. It was funny though.

Grace was meant to go to the exams office to get some stuff sorted. She asked Laura to come with her but I begged them to walk with me – as I was growing more and more hyper I wanted someone to vent it on. Luckily they agreed to come with me, and I squeaked excitedly all the way back. When Laura turned off home, I continued squeaking excitedly. I said I wasn’t sure how I was even getting there – although I thought we were driving Dad had been checking train times as well. Grace added bits of John Barrowman and we compared our preferred artists and what our upcoming concerts were going to be like. I also expressed a slight concern that had been building up all day. The summer before last, at Scorton Feast, I’d met one of Dad’s friends who’d said he’d seen them. He told us if we ever went, we’d need earplugs for the cannons.

Bloody hell. Were they really going to be that loud? Louder than the music? Loud enough to wreck peoples’ ears? The fear was nagging at me.

When we reached the road that Grace crosses to go home, she told me to tell her all about it the next day and I promised I would. I’d like to see anyone try to stop me! I waved and grinned, perhaps too enthusiastically, but come on. Imagine how I felt.

I don’t think the last five minutes or so home have ever felt so long. I trudged in the sun, thinking about the upcoming few hours. When I got home, Dad was in the living room wearing a Jack Daniels shirt and jeans and Amy was there in her new, spattered, zippy jeans and the ‘Rock N Roll Train’ shirt I bought her for her birthday. I felt weird then. Excitement turned back to nerves as I began to realise: this was it.

I said hi to Dad and Amy and checked they were all right before rushing upstairs to change my Vans to red Converse and my Judas Priest shirt to my red AC/DC one, with the logo, the evil-looking Angus and ‘lock up your daughters’ written on it. I also added my black AC/DC wristband and AC/DC dog tag. Steph gave me that one Christmas. She also gave me some AC/DC hairclips which I sadly lost. I do have AC/DC shoelaces but they’re too short for my Converse. I smothered my underarms in deodorant (the stuff I had smells like the spray they use in bowling shoes) and sprayed myself with perfume – Anna Sui’s Dolly Girl Bonjour L’Amour. Before I forgot I also grabbed my earplugs – I’d kept them since work experience – and put them in my pocket. When I returned downstairs Dad told me there was a pie in the kitchen for my tea, and I had to eat fast because we were going as soon as I was ready.

Don’t get me wrong. I like pie. But I could barely get it down. It was all crusty and thick and stuffy and chunky and dry and just chewing it was an immense effort. I drank water with it but it didn’t help, so in the end I gave up and left just under half of it in the bin, retiring to straighten my fringe and the fluffy ‘Brucie-bits’ of hair around my face. I brushed my teeth. I grabbed two spare batteries out of the charger, my camera, the two The Answer albums, my phone and the tickets. The cut-offs I bought had huge pockets, so that was handy. What wasn’t handy was that instead of deep, they were wide, so the stuff in there slid over to my crotch.

As soon as I was ready, I ran out to the car. It was so lovely and warm, especially as I’d put my jacket on again. I reached for my water – which, I realised, I’d left in the kitchen. I sprinted back through the door which Dad was about to lock to go and get it. I’d put ice cubes in the bottle to attempt to retain coldness for as long as possible. Once I had it I returned to the car. For real, this time. Dad had directions to the arena on my seat. I glanced at them before getting strapped in. Dad got in. Amy got in. And we set off!

I put the directions on the floor as we got going. I’d expected Dad to put on ‘Black Ice’ but he didn’t – I guess to listen to the radio for traffic updates and stuff. And to be honest, I was glad. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle it, for some reason. Nervousness took over. Dad asked me at one point if I could believe it was finally happening, and I really, really couldn’t. Usually in the run-up to gigs, at some point, the reality of the whole thing hits me so that I can start to be properly excited. That never happened with AC/DC, though. Not in the same way, anyway. Not as strongly. Which is why, sitting in the car on the way to an AC/DC concert, I couldn’t believe I was going to an AC/DC concert.

He also asked me who were supporting and were they good. I said it was The Answer, and yes they were. I offered to put one of the albums on but he didn’t want to listen.

We went on my favourite road – the one that goes past the pub covered in sea stuff, onto the main road. Because we used to go past it when we went on holiday early in the morning, I associate it with cool stuff.

My mouth was über-dry. Nervous-dry. The sort of dry which can only be eliminated by tasty food and not necessarily moisture. In this case, for example, water did nothing, though I sipped and sipped.

Dad had Radio Two on with Steve Wright playing oldies, which was good and calmed me down. There was some half decent stuff on there, such as ‘Money For Nothing’ by the Dire Straits. It was a disappointment when they finished. I’d enjoyed anticipating when the drums start on Phil Collins’ ‘In the Air Tonight’ (I can never remember). Instead, we had to listen to an interview with Lady Gaga. That was strange – Chloë had just been telling me that day about seeing her on TV. She didn’t like her from her videos, but apparently she’d seemed quite genuine and down-to-earth. Surprisingly, she was. And she had quite good influences, too. Why the hell, then, does, she come out with such awful, trashy music? I texted Chloë.

Amy had offered me sweets earlier, but I hadn’t fancied them. It wasn’t until I got completely sick of my bland, dry mouth that I asked for some. Very, very gradually it wetted up again, so that suddenly I felt all right. Amy was reading ‘Eclipse’. I took a photo of her on my phone.

At some point, I got a text from Steph. It said: ‘Hey! Mr. Mannix asked where you were, but he confused me at first because he called you Lemmy. I told him about AC/DC and he sang Stonehenge again. Have fun!’

I’d told him before the holidays where I was going, and he’d said he wasn’t bothered and he’s just mark me present. He sang the Spinal Tap song ‘Stonehenge’, which he does a lot. I don’t know why in this case, like, since the song’s not by AC/DC. However, he is rather forgetful. The worst bit, though, was the ‘Lemmy’. I mean, come on! I may have long brown hair, but that’s it! I don’t have a huge moustache and I don’t have huge warts on my face!

On the radio, there was a traffic update telling us that the road we’d take into Manchester was busy. Great. We weren’t entirely sure how to get there anyway, and now we had heavy traffic to add to our worries.

After this, though, Dad switched the radio to the CD player, and we got to listen to some ‘Black Ice’! Somehow this made the whole thing seem more real, and THAT made me more nervous. My mouth dried up again, and I actually felt kind of nauseous as well, even though I was loving the music.

Manchester wasn’t so bad, traffic-wise, when we got there. It was just the other drivers. Dad kept getting really annoyed when several people pulled out in front of him. I guess driving’s a lot different when you live in a big city, but there were some crap drivers around. We didn’t use the directions, though. We didn’t really need to. Following the signs was easy enough, en route to the town centre. I like cities – you get to see tons of cool things. There was a massive Ferris wheel kind of like the one York’s just got rid of.

Dad told us to look out for the arena, or the Victoria train station that was over the road. It wasn’t hard – all of a sudden, huge lettering on an equally huge building leapt out at me: ‘Manchester Evening News Arena’. That was it! The only thing left to do was find a park. That wasn’t hard, either. Dad noticed a couple of blokes holding up huge signs that said something like ‘CONCERT CAR PARKING’ which we followed right until we met a dude in a fluorescent yellow jacket. Dad checked with him that we were in the right place – he said yes, it was a fiver to park, and they would be open for an hour after the gig. Dad only had a £20 note. While we were waiting for change, he said he wasn’t sure about the place. Something about it did seem a bit dodgy, but we drove in anyway. There were a few other cars in there. Dad said that if anything did happen, at least we were all in the same boat. I’d been worried at first but it didn’t seem that bad – when I thought about it, even if the blokes weren’t official, all they wanted to do was make a bit of money. And we’d been expecting to pay a tenner at least!

A dude in the car next to ours grinned at Dad, and he grinned back. It wasn’t just us any more. We were part of a community – one made up of awesome rockers!

We spent a couple of minutes in the car, talking and hiding valuables. I’d taken my jacket off during a warm part of the journey so I put it back on again. It was quite warm, though, which was nice. There had been a stretch of road where it had been grey and raining.

A man and a woman from a couple of cars to our left came past, and said hi. Dad asked them if they thought it was all right to park there – they said it was fine, they’d used it before. Much to all of our relief! The man was really tall, with a beard and moustache, and the woman had red, curly hair and was wearing a Metallica tour shirt. They were from Halifax. We walked out with them.

They were really cool people. Mostly Dad talked to the man, and Amy and I talked to the woman. They’d been following AC/DC since 1978 and had only missed one tour – ironically, because they’d been in Australia! They were heading to the pub to meet their son, who they’d been taking to shows since he was really small. I suddenly wished Dad had taken us, but I guess I would’ve been too young to appreciate it.

The woman told us that AC/DC were brilliant live, and we’d really enjoy them. I said I’d wanted them to play Newcastle but they seemed to be just doing the bigger arenas. She seemed surprised that we’d come from so far up, but I said we didn’t live right in Newcastle. We told her a bit about our gig history, and she told us about hers, which was much longer and therefore more interesting! A couple she mentioned were the Metallica show and a Rush gig they’d seen on the Snakes and Arrows tour. I’ve recently been quite into rush, so I was very interested. I explained how I found ‘YYZ’ on Guitar Hero and ‘Spirit of Radio’ on – well – the radio (though I remembered I had it on a compilation album and so put it on my mp3 player) and she told me that the new stuff was a lot different to the old stuff, but still good.

Back on the subject of AC/DC, all three of us agreed that ‘Black Ice’ wasn’t their best album. Not that it’s in any way bad, it’s just really hard to live up to some of the legendary material they’ve released in the past. And when the woman mentioned that this tour was probably going to be their last, we sadly agreed on that as well. As much as I’d like to freeze rock stars in time, that’s impossible, and we all know Brian and the boys aren’t getting any younger. Although, said the man, they had been on an eight-year break (I think it’s actually six?) so he was expecting something spectacular, especially with that top secret £2 000 000 stage set!

I heard Dad mention our Maiden show to him, and he said he’d heard some of their new album stuff on Planet Rock and it wasn’t bad. I couldn’t believe I’d missed that, but I hadn’t had time to listen to much radio.

When we’d crossed a few roads in a run, we headed off one way before deciding to stay with them for a bit longer! Instead of passing the front of the arena we went down to the side where there were five big, black tour buses parked up. The man turned to his wife: “Have you seen how many buses they’ve got, look? Five!” Amy and I theorised about why the band might require five buses. Maybe outside of performing and recording, they actually hate each other …

We had to part ways eventually, so they could go to the pub. They told us how to get back to the arena, and whereabouts the town was so we could go for something to eat. Amy and I were also thirsty – the woman told us to drink loads, because it got hot in there, especially where we’d be, on the upper tier. She didn’t know where she was yet. We said goodbye and told each other to enjoy the show. I wouldn’t see them again. Which was really sad, because they were awesome.

This is one of those awkward times when we did quite a lot of stuff, but I don’t know exactly what order we did it in. This is about right, though, I think.

We walked into town, past the Hard Rock Café and through this big indoory-street type thing which had a lot of restaurants and an Odeon. ‘Flight 666’ was showing at Odeons that night – yeah, one night only! – so I ran to check to see if the movie poster was on there. It was! I took a close-up of it. At least I’d seen a genuine poster. That was the best I could do until the DVD came out, but of course live AC/DC took priority!

We saw The Birdcage, a club advertised in the leaflet the tickets had come in. And near to that was one of the most immense HMVs I have ever seen. It stretched as far as the eye could see from the door. I begged Dad to let us in – not that I’d be able to buy anything – and he did, saying he’d meet us in there in a bit, he wanted to ring someone. Amy and I ran in.

It was a disappointment. Despite its size, it had nothing I was looking for. No Brucie albums, no ‘Live at Donington’, no ‘Rock in Rio’, no ‘Blackout’ … grr. If you can’t walk the walk, don’t talk the talk.

We had a bit of a browse before we got bored and decided we’d go and fine Dad. But he wasn’t outside. And when we emerged from the other side of the shop, he wasn’t in the shopping centre. We returned to the shop to wait for him, and he arrived pretty soon. We went back into the shopping centre, where I decided to text my cousin’s friend Courtney. She moved to Manchester from America:

‘We’re in the arndale shopping centre right now! Xxx’

It was a cool shopping centre, with many interesting shops. We didn’t go in very many, though; I really want to go back for a proper look around.

Dad said I should probably keep the tickets out of sight, so I tucked them in my jacket. But this didn’t feel very secure – when it got too warm I stuck them under my shirt and tied my jacket around my waist to hold them in place. I could feel them against my belly, and if Angus was kind of flat and rectangle-shaped we knew they were safe.

We had a quick look in a random clothes shop with lots of amusing and rude t-shirts, and an equally random sports shop, before going to the loo and leaving the shopping centre in search of food. As I wasn’t particularly hungry I didn’t fancy much so Amy and I let Dad choose where to go. We did a bit of shirt-spotting: there were quite a few Maiden ones. Amy said they’d probably be for the film but I guessed a lot of them would be going to the show as well.

We went into the Hard Rock Café. I’d taken a picture of the outside before because it was the first one I’d ever seen, and I really wanted to see the inside. It was PACKED. Not that I’d expected it to be at all quiet. Being AC/DC night, most of the people in there had AC/DC shirts, and the screens were showing ‘Live at Donington’. The song playing when we went in there was ‘Fire Your Guns’, one of Grace’s favourites. We didn’t stay though. Way too busy and probably pretty expensive. But I took a photo of all the AC/DC fans and texted Grace: ‘The hard rock cafe is packed full of acca dacca fans and the tvs were playing fire your guns when we went in … Oh man this heaven!’ She replied ‘Oh my god! I hate u. Did u drive down? Where are u seeing them?’ ‘Manchester men arena. And yeah we drove in the end. Oh my god I’m insanely happy. I want to live on tour. I really do’

We continued our food search, during which Grace and I texted each other. ‘You are insane…But i don’t blame you! God i wish i could go c them! But oh well im going to c my john instead!’ We returned to the Arndale Centre via the indoor street thingy again. Dad fancied sitting down to eat, so after much more searching we ended up at Costa. I ordered my pre-gig cheese and ham Panini and water to drink. I could take the bottle around with me to beat any more mouth-dryness I might experience.

‘That suits me fine. But i bet jonfans do not produce this atmosphere…’ I told Grace. ‘Oh, they produce a different kind of atmosphere. Lol.’ ‘Actually amy said it was like that a bit at kylie… Haha that’d be funny to watch!’

I have never had pre-gig nerves so bad in my life. Ever. I could barely eat. I slowly forced down just over half of my Panini in the time it took Dad to finish his food and drink and call Nick. (He described the awesome atmosphere, and he did actually sound pretty excited. To be honest that did make me feel kind of better.) However, before he went on the phone he made me feel worse by asking us what we thought Angus was doing at that moment. That made me realise that Angus was actually a real person, and that I was going to see him. I told Dad to stop it. He was freaking me out! Two guys dressed as Angus went past. They looked really cool, and Dad said he wished he’d done the same.

There was a young dude at the table next to ours who kept checking out my shirt, I swear. Thinking about it, I didn’t see any others like mine all night. I was individual as an AC/DC fan in a crowd of AC/DC fans!

After we were as finished as we were ever going to be, we got up and left. I got another message from Grace: ‘Lol! Rite now bugger off to ur concert am trying to do homework.’ Aw, poor her. Boring homework. ‘Aaaaw but we’re not going in for a bit! Who will I annoy? Don’t forget i’ll phone you later and it will be LOUD’ She replied: ‘Oh god! I cant wait.’

We had a bit of a wander – Dad wanted to find the tram lines, and he did, but they were closed – however, it became clear that all we really had left to do was go to the arena, so we headed that way, passing a BMW just like our auntie’s. We joked about how funny it would be to see her there. AC/DC are not her cup of tea but it’s sort of like her to pretend to be into a band to look cool.

It wasn’t long before we were outside the front door. I was itching to be in, but Dad insisted we got our bearings first, so we could find our way back to the car afterwards. We’d forgotten earlier due to being distracted by the cool couple.

It took us quite a while. Too long! I was getting impatient. We followed a road for ages thinking the car park might be somewhere on it. We even carried on for a bit after it became clear that we were going the wrong way. Then, of course, we had to walk all the way back, when all I wanted to do was be there.

A small, white car drove past, music blaring out – a proper chav-mobile, I thought, until I realised that the song playing was actually ‘Touch Too Much’! It was mad! Two boy racer-looking guys blasting out one of my all-time favourite songs. Amy and I sang along loudly and air-guitared, for once not feeling at all stupid.

Eventually, we figured out which road it was judging by the direction we’d gone in when we’d reached the arena. Deciding it couldn’t be that hard; and we had an hour after the show in which to find it, after all; we ascended the steps to the doors. I had to retrieve the tickets and hand them over to the woman there. She scanned Dad’s first, and I sighed in relief. It was real! I’d bought it for £120 off a PlayTrader a week previously. Thank God. I could finally relax!

Mine and Amy’s tickets were clearly fine, so we got straight in. And the minute I got in there I knew I was going to be all right. There were crowds of AC/DC fans, like me, waiting to see this legendary band in concert. What could possibly happen? It was going to be amazing.

I noticed the merchandise stall pretty quickly. Well, it was almost more a full-blown shop than a stall. My pockets needed lightening – I asked Dad if we could go and buy some stuff. He let us go while he went to get drinks for himself and Amy.

It was busy as hell in there, but I wasn’t bothered. It gave me time to decide what I wanted. There was so much! I knew there was going to be a lot, but there was more than I’d imagined. I’d seen devil horns on people and immediately knew I wanted some of those. I also wanted a programme. And a t-shirt. You could buys tons of shirts, The Answer’s newest album, bandanas, hoodies … even earplugs! But I knew I shouldn’t buy it all. I didn’t NEED it. So when we got around to being served, I bought a programme and a shirt each for me and Amy. We both got tour shirts, but different ones. Amy’s had the ‘Black Ice’ art on the front and all the tour dates on the back, and mine had the band on the front and the 2009 dates on the back. Both size small. We’re pretty similar heights so we could switch them around if we ever wanted to.

We got the stuff in an OFFICIAL AC/DC BLACK ICE TOUR CARRIER BAG! I was psyched! Sadly we only got one, so we agreed to share it and take very good care of it.

We met Dad outside the stall, where he gave Amy her drink. I took a quick photo of them together, smiling. It encapsulated the pre-gig atmosphere perfectly. Then we went for a bit of a walk around. There wasn’t a whole lot to see. Basically I people-watched – although most of the people in there seemed to be middle-aged men, which I’d expected, there were some women and children. I saw one young woman dressed totally gothic. AC/DC have a wider appeal than people think. I also noticed some posters – Razorlight and Enrique Iglesias were among the acts the arena would host in the near future. It didn’t seem right that legends like AC/DC would share a stage with these other, mediocre artists.

We went up some steps into one of the blocks so we could have a look at the arena itself. The woman there asked for our tickets – when we told her we were just looking, she let us go to the side for a bit.

The arena was immense. We were at the very top of the lower tier, not much lower down than we’d be sitting, which was good. I’d been worried about vertigo but it hardly felt high compared to what I’d expected.

The place was already buzzing. I had a good look around – although the stage was set for the support, among the lighting gear above it I could see a giant bell. And there was a long catwalk stretching out into the crowd. No prizes for guessing who was going to be using that. At the end of this, there was a small circle platform. I guessed it probably rose into the air, as I’d seen similar things do on DVDs and other live videos. I managed to take a couple of pictures before the woman politely told us we had to move if we weren’t sitting down.

Back out, I realised that I’d forgotten to buy horns! Dad assured me there were stalls I could get them from. I bought two pairs off a man who was also selling posters and I.D. tags. I was juggling quite a lot of stuff by then as I’d also taken my jacket off, so it got awkward, but we got there in the end. Dad asked me how much money I had – he was shocked when I told him. “I know how expensive merch is!” I protested, “And I want loads! I love merch!”

We unwrapped our horns and put them on straight away. I gave Dad my camera so he could take a photo of Amy and me together, looking mad. I rarely get gig photos of myself.

Some blokes about Dad’s age came in just after this. They noticed the horns and were absolutely amazed. “Where’d you get them from?” they asked in awe. We told them and they went straight off to buy some. Dad wouldn’t buy anything for himself, and he wouldn’t let me buy him anything.

The horns hadn’t come in a bag. Amy and I found one in a bin – when I tried to rescue it, though, it had stuff in it, so I just left it.

I was really desperate to get in for real, but first Dad insisted we organised a meeting place. We agreed to meet next to an Enrique poster, a bit to the left of the main door as we were coming out of the arena. Dad warned us to be careful. We all said goodbye, told each other to have a good time, and Amy and I headed off to our seats. Seats which, at first, I thought were in block 211. Dad’s was there – we were in 207. We turned back and went the right way, passing another Angus. Save for his immense height, he looked like the real deal from the back.

There were some steps up to our block, too. We checked our tickets with the man there, who showed us to our seats about a metre away. Row A, seats fourteen and fifteen. I went in first so that Amy was on the outside. Two seats down from me, there was a man with beer and a beard, but I couldn’t see any further.

I sat down, put all my stuff on the floor, and took in the whole place. I would’ve said it was about half full. I noticed something I hadn’t seen before – the bass drum had ‘The Answer’ on it. I took a couple of pictures before replacing my camera in my pocket and grabbing the programme to read. It was really smart, with shiny bits. I read through it. When I got to the end, I noticed there hadn’t been pages on all the band members. Where the hell had Angus been? Frantically, I flicked back – he was the first one in there. I’d turned two pages, just like I had done with Bruce at Iron Maiden.

I think that Dad rang Amy somewhere around here. We looked a few blocks to our right and found him, but for a while he couldn’t see us. We waved like crazy until he could, and we left each other to it. Imagine looking directly forward at the top tier from the stage: Dad was a couple to the left, we were a couple to the right. Almost symmetrical, I think, but not quite. We had really good views. It doesn’t sound like it, but we did.

A youngish man in a Rush tour shirt from 2007 came and filled the empty seat next to me. I could see him looking at my shirt. I wanted to say hi – I always envy the way Dad talks to random people – but I was too shy, and didn’t. I regret it now but I can’t do anything about that.

There was music on the sound system, as there generally is, but I only knew one song. It was that one by Sweet – ‘Little Willie Won’t Go Home’, I found out later. Now that song reminds me of AC/DC.

All of a sudden, without me expecting anything, the lights went down. The darkness was punctuated by little red lights, flashing rapidly, slowly or on continuously: the devil horns had three settings. There were also little white lights from phones and cameras. A crescendo of cheers rose.

On came The Answer, to their ‘Everyday Demons’ album art on the big screens that I’d only just noticed! Whoo! I’m not really sure of what they played exactly but I think they opened with ‘Demon Eyes’. I’m annoyed that I don’t remember well enough. I know the songs in themselves, just not really what they’re called. The songs I think they played, though, are ‘Under the Sky’, ‘Too Far Gone’ and ‘On and On’. They definitely played that last one, because I filmed some of it. I also filmed a rather nice bit of extended guitar solo. Their set was only about half an hour, though.

Amy and I love Irish accents, so whenever the singer, Cormac, spoke, we giggled. He has a nice talking voice and a great singing voice – it’s a lot like Robert Plant. Dad even said that himself later. He also has cool, long, brown, wavy hair – I don’t think I ever saw his face. He introduced the band and said where they were from. At one point he asked us if we were ready for some AC/DC, which got a huge response.

There were still loads of empty places during The Answer’s show. The bloke next to me knew all the words – clearly, he liked them. But a couple of men behind me were talking, and I got the feeling they weren’t impressed. Which was a shame, but unsurprising. Although I thought they were really good, and I loved singing along to my favourite of their songs, ‘On and On’, the crowd were there for the headliners. And as the headliners generally appeal to middle-aged men more than anyone else, a band of the contemporary rock scene probably didn’t hold much interest for a lot of them. Understandable, I suppose. Even I agreed that their show wasn’t big enough for an arena that size. I’d like to see them again in an academy show. Luckily they’re playing Newcastle in November! I have my ticket already.

I showed my appreciation as they went off, and the house lights came back on, looking quite yellow after the bright white stage lights. I felt sort of light, and empty – the chatter was too quiet now I was used to loud music. I turned to Amy to discuss our opinions on The Answer’s show, which were pretty similar. I took a few more pictures of the gradually filling arena, and one of Amy grinning. The music came back on again. I was slightly nervous for the last time. Nervous but mainly excited. I knew they wouldn’t be on for a bit, but still, I held my breath at the end of every song, none of which I knew.

I got really, really excited when I watched the soundcheck. The man playing Angus’ guitars kept his back to us so I didn’t get to check them out, same with Cliff’s bass, but I saw Malcolm’s guitars and pointed them out to Amy. At one point the Angus man held one of the guitars to an amp to make a horrible squealy noise. It was funny. Amy was annoyed with herself for forgetting to film the mike tests for Hannah, who finds them hilarious.

More songs. Every time one finished, I paused and waited in silence, but there were still a few more. I had to wait.

And then the lights went down.

It was insane. The whole place, now pretty much full, went wild as the sound of a train filled the air. It was so LOUD! It rumbled through my body. Quickly, I turned on my camera and began to film. On the big screen behind the stage, an animated video appeared to explain the noise: a train running way too fast along a track, in the dark. We got a look in the windows: Brian Johnson was sitting in a carriage, evidently alone, until an attractive woman stood up, obviously having just finished giving BJ a BJ. Haha.

We cut to the engine room, where the demented schoolboy from hell, complete with devil horns and a forked tail, was shovelling coal. Now who the hell left him in control of a train? He flicked his pointy red tongue at us, to much laughter. Video-Angus appeared to be about thirty years younger than real Angus, but he looked so awesome that it didn’t matter.

Then, two pretty young women in AC/DC shirts appeared. To put it bluntly, they were well up for it. There were some interesting shots of their extremely scarce attire, to which Angus responded enthusiastically, the pointy devil tail snaking between his legs and stiffening. It was huge. I wonder what they were trying to say?

The slags removed various items of clothing and began to ‘pleasure’ Angus: sucking his horns, etc. He was, needless to say, loving it. Until one of them punched him in the face! What a bitch! It seemed they had been trying to seduce him into submission so they could take control of the train. They tied his hands behind his back and left him on the floor, grabbing the controls and – breaking one of the levers? Shit! The train was running away at top speed and there was nothing they could do about it! Knowing they were done for, the slags jumped, landing safely on the ground outside and leaving the train to speed on …

A blinding flash. A deafening crash. The whole stage was a blaze of white light as AC/DC, for real, ran on. Phil, Cliff, Brian, Malcolm and, of course, Angus. I was going to stand up but no one else did so I stayed in my seat and went mad there. I was still filming the opener, ‘Rock N Roll Train’ … accompanied by a massive train, dominating the stage, behind the drums. It even had horns.

I could hardly believe it. I was looking right at my heroes and I wasn’t fainting. I was cheering and headbanging with my horns a-blazing, ensuring they were secure on my head. There had been nothing to worry about. Usually I kind of forget this stuff during shows, but all the way through this one I was completely aware of what I was seeing, and that somehow made it better.

Angus is TINY. I knew he was, obviously. Everyone knows that. But when I saw him I couldn’t help but notice, and I was amazed.

Brian opened his mouth and started singing in his trademark gravelly shriek now joined by thousands more voices. It was the perfect opener – it set the scene for the night and it’s so sing-along that it warmed us up to fever pitch. And there was so much to take in! There were four screens showing the band (but mainly Brian and Angus) – the big one split into two, and there were two smaller ones to either side – and the lights were amazing. Beams stretched all the way across the arena, looking almost solid.

They played the song brilliantly, proving that, as always, they were on top form.

I think Brian talked to us afterwards, but it could have been a little bit later. Whenever it was he said something along the lines of “How’re you doing Manchester? It’s good to be home! We’re gonna play a mixture of old and new stuff for you tonight.” Phil counted them in and they ploughed on with ‘Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be’. I think I stood up here, and pumped my fist to the riff. I stood up and sat down quite a lot throughout the show, but I’m not quite sure when, so I’ll only mention it if I remember.

This song was a good contrast to the first – a newie, then an oldie. A Bon-ny, in fact. I love the oldies! Who cares if I wasn’t even born? There’s a general idea that teenagers tend to prefer newer stuff but I knew all the words to this, better than I had for ‘Rock N Roll Train’. To reflect the theme of the song, flames shot up from the train, making it look more demonic than ever. Two songs in and already the stage set had blown us all away.

The third song needed no introduction. I was on my feet again for the posers’ favourite – ‘Back in Black’. Despite its reputation among hardcore fans it was fantastic, and of course you could pretty much guarantee that everyone knew it by heart so we were all singing at the same time. You could even hear it was slightly louder. Not that I’d shut up yet. I always swear it’s not really a favourite of mine, but live – wow. Brian was singing his ‘back momma’ line and it was all good. One of those songs you can’t really appreciate until you’ve seen it live.

After a couple of classics they played a second song from ‘Black Ice’ – ‘Big Jack’. This is one of my favourite new ones. I love the way the guitar on the chorus sounds, and it gives me a really happy feeling which was intensified here. I’m slow at picking up lyrics so I didn’t know some of the words – for example at the chorus I literally sang ‘you know it’s only natural to something something something’. But I didn’t need to sing along word-perfect to know how great it was.

An old favourite came next. ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’. From the first riff I knew it’d be amazing. They played it quite heavily, so it sounded scary and more threatening. And Angus’ hat came off! Usually it lasts about thirty seconds … is four and a bit songs a record? I texted Grace and Laura and told them.

Angus sang, too. On the line ‘but you ain’t got the guts’. I knew he’d done it before but I didn’t think he’d do it for us. His voice does NOT match his person. It’s all deep and rough, a real smoker’s voice. It’s actually quite funny. And he did the scream at the end, the big screens showing his face. His hair is quite long at the moment. It surprised me – on the video for ‘Rock N Roll Train’ it’s short. He’s looking quite good now, compared to recent years, although like Brian he is going bald.

In the first draft of this thing I completely missed out this song – ‘Shot Down in Flames’. I don’t know how I did, because I texted Grace during it, and I even videoed myself on my phone. I wanted to see what I looked like at a concert, as I don’t tend to bring a mirror to see. It was a nice surprise, because I love the song and I wasn’t expecting them to play it. (I’d looked at the setlist beforehand to make sure I knew all the new stuff. I know, it ruins it, but I had to be certain!) I even yelled the line “Hey you! Angus! Shoot me, shoot!” even though Brian didn’t.

For the opening riff of the next song, the lights and the crowd went crazy – ‘Thunderstruck’. I watched Angus play in awe, yet tried not to pass out as the lights flashed in time with the extremely fast-paced guitar. The screens had lightning bolts and other powerful images of that sort on them. AC/DC concerts – not for the epileptic.

Yelling “THUNDER!” with the drums sounded fantastic. You know it will, because you’ve listened to ‘AC/DC Live’ a million times, but like a lot of similar things you can’t comprehend it properly until you do it. Yet another song that greatly impressed me. It’s tailor-made for playing live, and I’ve never meant the line ‘we’re doing fine, so fine’ so much in my life. Amy left a message of this on the home phone, she loved it so much. And we stood up for the whole thing.

‘Black Ice’ came next. I can’t remember a whole lot about it except that I headbanged, and made sure my horns didn’t fall off at the same time. Where I’d usually hiss the title line, I shouted it with everyone else. Although I don’t remember it well, I do know it was good. As Dad said later, the new album stuff came across way better live.

Brian got talking a bit – he said the next song was about a ‘dirty woman’. Ooh! We knew what was coming! Apparently, this woman was so dirty she made Big Jack cry! As if we needed another clue … I loved hearing Brian talking, but I also wanted him to get on with the song, because I love that, too. ‘The Jack’ – the bluesy, audience participation-filled ode to STDs. Because of Dad and Charlton’s old inside joke I’d promised Charlotte I’d ring her during this song. In between standing up, filming, and singing along, I rang her mobile during the chorus – then I remembered she was doing an exam, and she’d told me to ring the home phone! Crap … Brian was doing the chant with us all, and by the time I got through to the answerphone it was just about over. Until Brian started it up again! Phew! God bless you, Jonna. I got to yell “She’s got the jack!” for twice as long. The screens showed some of the women in the crowd. Some noticed and laughed, singing; some noticed and did nothing; some didn’t notice. Another one of those moments you can only dream about when you’re listening to the live albums, although on my video I can’t stand the sounds of my voice. I got so into it that I did my jaw in badly. It hurt like hell but I put it to the back of my mind quickly.

Then came one of the bits I’d been totally psyched over in my free – Angus’ striptease! I looked back up at the stage from hanging up my phone to see that he was taking his guitar off and handing it to a roadie. I screamed with everyone else and quickly turned on my camera to film again. I kept it still so I could watch Angus with my own eyes and not through a screen.

When is it OK for a fifty four year old man to strip in front of thousands of people? There’s only one such occasion – why, an AC/DC concert, of course! Despite the crowd being mostly male, Angus received an enthusiastic response. Of course, he’s only messing, quite possibly the reason why he can get away with it. Off came the tie … and the blazer … he did something disgusting with that, and I screamed “Angus, you dirty bugger!” simply for the hell of it. I couldn’t stop whooping and laughing. It was hilarious. The rest of the band played throughout. I bet they never get tired of it.

Slowly, he unbuttoned his shirt, back to us in front of the drum riser – then swivelled around, opening his shirt to reveal his bare torso, much to our (apparent) pleasure. He was grinning all over his face at our appreciation, and holding a hand to his ear so we’d cheer louder before we returned to the riser. Ooh … what was he gonna do? What was he gonna do …?

The music concluded with Phil’s rock-hard drumming, and Angus yanked down his shorts to reveal boxer shorts with ‘AC/DC’ written across them. We went crazy – Angus’ boxers times five, four of these times enlarged on the giant screens for all to see. It was amazing. Even though he’s not allowed to moon us any more. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. I’d known it was going to happen, of course, but still … wow.

Angus pulled his shorts back up and ran to grab his guitar again to finish the song. And what a song. An absolute classic.

(I picked up on something during the strip. At one point – could’ve been before he took his shirt off, or later – Angus did something with his hand down the front of his shorts. I wasn’t entirely sure, but then Amy agreed afterwards and Dad mentioned it himself even later. Scratching or rearranging? Dad reckoned rearranging: “Making sure he’s all there,” he said, when we watched my video three nights later. I wouldn’t turn the sound on until I was sure I’d finished swearing!)

The start of the next song was signalled by the descent of a ginormous bell on a rope, complete with deep, clanging sound effects. It sounded ominous, yet thrilling. I filmed it. When the bell stopped coming down, Brian ran to the rope, seized it, and swung from it. He looked like he was having loads of fun, which he probably was.

‘Hells Bells’ was another fantastic song. There was nothing particularly good about it – the whole thing overall just rocked. It sounded scary. And scarily good. The set wouldn’t be complete without it.

‘Shoot to Thrill’ came next, just like it does on the album. I’d been scared I’d forget to ring Grace but I remembered right away, dialling her number and getting through to her in time for the chorus. She said later that she couldn’t understand a thing – probably because I shrieked as loudly as I could into the phone to try to convey how awesome the show was.

There’s the bit after the chorus after the solo during which everyone claps with their arms in the air that I’d been looking forward to. Amy and I sprang to our feet for this bit, and it looked EPIC. Every now and then I’d look away from the stage for a moment to stare around the arena at all the hands. Imagine being able to get so many people to do that for you. Cool …

They stuck a couple of new songs in after that. First came ‘War Machine’, a slightly darker song from ‘Black Ice’ that sounded amazing when it started up. Instead of showing the band on the screens, there was another animated video. Some fighter planes dropped red SGs and AC/DC-whores on the ground, where a war appeared to be going on, involving, among other things, tanks and the giant Angus statue. The rest of the band were half-animated in one of the tanks. It went really well with the song – even though seeing a concert is about the music, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of a show now and again. Especially when it comes to this band. I think ‘War Machine’ was my favourite new song of the night.

Secondly came my, Dad’s and Amy’s favourite ‘Black Ice’ song – ‘Anything Goes’. The screens went back to the band. Who gives a shit if that riff is stolen? (Lots of people claim it came from the song ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ by The Headboys, I think?) AC/DC do it best. I think this song is one of the ultimate rock feelgood songs. It was brilliant – it made me feel so happy. And we did more of that epic clapping as well!

I also think that the next song is one of the ultimate rock feelgood songs: ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’. You could tell how well-known it was from the massive response it got straight away. Another posers’ favourite but still amazing – I rang Rich during the chorus as it’s one of his favourites, too (he’s not a poser!) It was a lot of fun. Amy and I spent the whole solo air guitaring our hearts out.

When they start playing the real classics, you know they’re rounding up the show. The next familiar favourite was ‘T.N.T.’ Angus came to the microphone for the “OI!”s so we heard his voice again. His face was all over the big screens too. I thought it was really funny how he did the whole ‘women to the left of me…’ thing, implying that he was a woman when he went to the left or right side of Brian. And ‘ain’t got no knife’ … hahaha! I’d seen him do it on live videos, but it’s different again ACTUALLY live. On the line ‘lock up your daughter’, Amy and me both pointed to my shirt.

The chorus messed with my head, as I am easily confused – I wanted to sing the whole thing but Angus was doing ‘oi’s again and I wanted to join in with those. I ended up singing a strange mixture of the two, pumping my fist until the end.

And now, as they say, the moment we’d all been waiting for. I’d chanted for it wit some of the men in the block, but it was way too early, and our cries of “Angus!” (clap-clap-clap) went unnoticed by anyone but ourselves. But now. This was different. This was it. I started buzzing with frenzied excitement. I stood up.

“We’ve brought along an old girlfriend tonight,” said Brian in his deep Geordie accent. Of course you had. We’d been waiting for her all night. And now we could sort of see her … if she was indeed the floppy thing that had appeared above the train …

The riff started. We roared.

‘Der-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner’. “ANGUS!” ‘Der-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner’. “ANGUS!” Etc. It was finally happening. I was seeing my favourite song all of all time played live. I took photos, I rang home and left a message which is still there. On the line ‘four-two-thirty-nine-fifty-six’ the floppy thing above the train began to inflate, and became a ginormous woman. Rosie! Rising the train, pun intended. She was appalling and amazing and we loved her, ripped stockings and all. Man, she’s a legend. And ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ is pretty much a universal favourite among fans. It’s mine, at any rate. I went absolutely crazy for it, air guitaring all the way through the solo and the ‘guitar duel’ that followed. I could use every big long positive describing word in the dictionary and still not convey how much I enjoyed those few minutes. Even though I did my jaw in for the second time.

When Rosie deflated I felt a mixture of disappointment and elation. I remained on my feet as Phil did the count-in for ‘Let There Be Rock’, and another one of my all-time favourite songs began. Another one perfect for going crazy to, particularly after the line ‘let there be sound’. There was only one thing I wasn’t too sure about, and that was the whole AC/DC album discography being displayed on the big screen (sometimes the two behind the stage merged into one, only I didn’t notice until I thought about it later). Aside from making me feel all nostalgic and reflecting on the years and years of rocking AC/DC have provided us with, it sort of confirmed existing suspicions about the ‘Black Ice’ tour being the last, and I was a bit sad. Surely they wouldn’t do that without telling us first?

I couldn’t feel that bad, though, because I was still watching them so I continued to take it all in, looking forward to the coming solo I knew Angus would no doubt be playing. Sure enough, during his extended solo he made his way down the catwalk until he reached the circular platform on the end, which rose into the air. He did he ‘spinny thing’! I filmed pretty much this whole solo in three parts, for fear of my camera battery dying. And after the album end to the song, he continued. Playing and playing and playing. There were some incredible camera tricks going on here, making it look like there were about five Anguses on each screen. It looked especially good when he was stood at the back of the stage with the screen behind him. Kind of trippy, as each Angus was a split-second behind the one in front. A lot of the time I air-guitared along, as did lots of other people, but for some of it I literally just watched in genuine awe. I remembered why my name on YouTube is ‘Angusismyhero’. He is like God.

When this epic masterpiece of a hard rock classic finished – and what a huge finish – the band left the stage, to tons of cheers. The show had easily been a full show – loads of bands play less even with an encore – but I for one was gagging for more and I knew every single other person was too because nobody moved. We just yelled. And yelled. And yelled. Nothing in particular – a couple of chants were started, but didn’t hold out for very long. All we really did was make a hell of a lot of noise. Come on. We knew they were coming back out. All we had to do was wait for them.

It felt like ages before we heard Angus’ guitar again. We roared our appreciation as he rose from below the stage to red lighting and fire on the screens. ‘Highway to Hell’! On came the band and they played again! The floor bounced as one. There’s something about declaring that you’re on the highway to hell with thousands of other people … I’m not quite sure what it is … but it feels good. And on the line ‘hey mamma …’ I screamed to the ceiling, where I assume my mum was watching. Haha. I hope wherever dead people are, she was watching, anyway.

To conclude, they played one of those huge, loud endings, and Brian did some pretty awesome screaming. All high and screechy – man, he’s amazing. Granted his voice isn’t what it used to be, but considering his age … well. He can sing higher than loads of men I know who are way younger.

Multi-coloured lights flashed as the final riff pierced the air and as good as heralded the start of the end of the show. ‘For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)’ is always last and, despite its name, is a good one to close with. I’d always imagined that seeing it live would make me cry, but actually, I just went with the moment.

It was, like so many others, an amazing live song, one that was written to play live. I know anthemic isn’t a real word, but it should be made one, because it describes songs like this perfectly. For me, it’s not a normal favourite; it’s a live favourite. Although it’s quite slow, it somehow means that every tiny little thing about it hits harder. I don’t really know how to describe the feeling. It was just perfect.

The only time I sat down was for the first cannon blasts – six cannons, three either side of Phil and his kit. I sat and blocked my ears, and the cannons went off, and – it was fine! The music was way louder. I leapt to my feet again so I could join in properly: “FIRE!” Then it got all fast and intense and I loved it. Loved it loved it loved it. Very basic language but you get the idea. I never, ever wanted it to end.

But end it did. The cannons blasted away, the song reached a mighty crescendo, and the show was over. AC/DC left the stage. And we just continued screaming. The house lights were still off – Amy and I refused to leave until the house lights came back on, even though some people were going, and a few were already gone. They were in the minority, though. The vast majority of us were still there, trying everything we could to get them back. The bloke two to my left yelled “’Let’s Get it Up’!” From making general loud noise to more “ANGUS!” chanting … until finally, the lights went back on, turning the arena into an ordinary, yellowish venue again. The show was officially over.

We got up to leave and meet Dad. Because I was used to the loud and the dark, my ears and eyes were totally messed up. I felt lightheaded and floaty, and my depth perception was all wrong. Amy and I headed towards the previously arranged meeting place. On the way, though, we had to pass the main entrance and some of the officials were directing crowds out. There was a whole wall of people blocking our way! Amy asked the nearest official man if he’d let us through – we squeezed in and found Dad within the sea of people. Amy nearly bypassed him. I grabbed her and we all changed direction to go along with everyone else. We were talking straight away. Dad asked what we’d thought and we told him how amazing we’d found it. I also told him about my fears concerning the ‘Let There Be Rock’ album covers and how I thought it might mean we’d never see them again. Dad said at least I had seen them, which was true. That was never going to change now, and I was ecstatic about that.

We went down the road we’d previously worked out to be the right one (although we asked another official dude first, to be sure) still talking about anything and everything – the songs we’d liked, how incredible Angus was, the size of Rosie, etc. Dad said he’d known Angus was good but he hadn’t expected him to be THAT good. And he’s seen him twice before! Amy asked him whether he’d preferred the shows he saw back in ’80, or this one, and he said he didn’t know. It was almost thirty years ago, after all. So she asked us both whether we’d preferred AC/DC or Iron Maiden. I had to think for a moment before I answered: “Well, I think Maiden was a better day because I wasn’t at school, but AC/DC did the better show.” Since I said that, my preference intensified. Dad said he’d definitely preferred AC/DC and I realised how much I agreed.

It took us a couple of turn-offs before we found our car park. I wondered if we’d see the couple again. We didn’t, but both Dad and Amy thought they’d seen them in the arena itself earlier.

After figuring out exactly how to get out, we were soon on the road home. Dad said he liked how easy the MEN Arena was to get to. He proposed a bet on how long it would take to get home: Amy said we’d arrive at quarter past twelve, Dad said twenty past (he changed his guess so that it was different to Amy’s) and I said half past. I was allowing for post-gig traffic but there was barely any. Good thing for us: bad thing for me, I guess!

I was amazed at how good I felt. I wasn’t tired, I wasn’t depressed, I didn’t have a headache and I didn’t have a sore throat. In fact, the only complaint I had was toothache! I don’t know why, like. They were just absolutely killing me. I drank some water and between us we finished off one of the packets of sweets. The high sugar content didn’t help but the soft, squishy texture did. I craved more – Amy, however, managed to drop the rest in one of the side pockets. The one behind me and opposite her. No matter how much we twisted and stretched, we couldn’t retrieve them.

Usually I hate listening to bands right after their concerts. This time, although we had the radio back on, I knew that listening to AC/DC wouldn’t have bothered me. I was so immensely happy that I couldn’t stop grinning.

I told Dad he should’ve got a shirt to prove to people where he was: “What if Jonna dies tomorrow?” His answer was, basically, that he didn’t have to prove anything to anyone any more. Still, I said, the t-shirts were cool!

All the way home we were pretty quiet. Every now and again we’d talk for a minute or two about something before resuming our silence. Dad and I thought Amy had fallen asleep, so we didn’t try to wake her up, not even when Bon Jovi’s ‘Always’ came on the radio. Later she told us she’d been awake, and just resting.

I can’t really remember everything we talked about on the way home. I know at one point a crappy pop song came on the radio, and I pitched a theory I had to Dad about how rockers pick out specifics in songs and appreciate them more than people who like normal pop do. Dad sounded disinterested – admittedly I talk like that a lot, and I think that people get sick of me.

There was also a part where some people were discussing arachnophobia, and consequently infuriating me: I love spiders and can’t understand why anyone would be scared of them. It was particularly annoying when they were on about killing the poor babies – all they do is rid the house of dirty flies! They’re helpful!

My mind was on AC/DC all the way home, though, no matter what was on the radio. I re-lived the best bits, of which there were loads. I mentioned bits and pieces that sprang to mind, such as the songs I’d enjoyed, and Dad had enjoyed, the most.

Amy woke up (or talked, having been awake – depending on who you believe) just before we arrived home, just in time to see that she’d won the bet. We got home at nine minutes past midnight. AC/DC were yesterday. Already.

When we got inside, I wasn’t tired. We all had a drink and a brief discussion about the show, saying how in awe we were of Angus and other such stuff. My memory’s not good at details like this. I gave Amy her t-shirt, said goodnight to her and Dad and went up to bed. I was far from sleep, though. I took a picture of myself in my horns, stuck my ticket on my wardrobe with my other cool stuff, laid out my t-shirt to wear the next day, changed into my pyjamas and got into bed, smiling and smiling. I didn’t want to settle down to sleep just yet. I wrote a diary entry; more than a bit hyper, it was kind of disjointed and lacked real cohesion:

’21 Tuesday ac/dc – (doesn’t work in that writing)

I don’t want to go to sleep. I am so happy, happy happy that I never want this day to end. Even though it’s actually the 22nd now (it’s half past midnight), you know what I mean. I just saw the best concert of my life so far. No words. It was that good. What can I say? It’s all gonna be in my gig log anyway. Oh my God. I had the most amazing night. I saw Angus Young duckwalk, strip and, most importantly, play awesome guitar, with my own eyes. Oh, man. Everything about it was epic. Everything from the dirty video at the start to the cannons at the end. Wow!’

I think that pretty much sums up how my thoughts were working at that point.

Even though I did actually try to get to sleep, I was ‘so happy, happy happy’ that I couldn’t, for ages. I kept doing the devil horns and rolling around, grinning and sighing to myself. I don’t know what time it was when I did fall asleep.

The next day – well, the same day – I was still happy. Not a trace of post-concert depression. I woke up to ‘If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It), in fact. I got dressed in my new shirt and horns. I went downstairs to Dad and Amy and talked more gig talk. I listened to ‘War Machine’ on the way to college. I scared Grace in my horns. Overall, where I’d expected it to be a bad day, it was great. Telling my friends all the details was fun for me, even if it did bore some of them to tears. That first break was funny – I was enthusiastically relating to them the size of Rosie’s boobs, and Chloë said I should probably be careful who was listening. True! If someone had heard me at the wrong moment my innocent story of inflatable women could have sounded like some sordid lesbian encounter! In the afternoon, as I walked past some Y10s in my horns, I distinctly heard the words ‘not Halloween.’ Screw them. They need to learn the joys of AC/DC.

Plus, to make the day even better, I was suffering virtually no post-gig symptoms – sure my teeth were still slightly sore, and I had severe gut-rot – but in myself I felt absolutely fine.

Work was a bit of a bring-down, though. After I’d told Ralph about the show, he proceeded to have a go (well – not really have a go, I’m exaggerating) at me about the state of the sinks. How was I meant to know they were that dirty? I hadn’t bothered to look at them during the holidays, seeing as no one had touched them since I last cleaned them …

I only felt down that evening. I went on the computer to upload the photos, and I had a shower, and while I was alone I got the temporary blues.

Not that they lasted. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good after a concert.

It’s now Friday, 1st May – not only ten days after the concert: the bloody thing was also last month! (Second draft: Tuesday, 19th May. Four weeks ago exactly.) I’m still waiting for the comedown. My ecstasy has gradually faded but I’ve been expecting that really depressing period where you realise it’s all over, and it simply hasn’t happened. It just goes to show what a fantastic gig I saw. It even cured my clicky jaw – it was quite bad before I went, and now, instead of being worse, it’s back to normal.

I really don’t know what to say. I never feel like I understand a band properly until I’ve seen them live. I only discovered this after my first concert. It doesn’t matter how obsessed I am with them, how much I know about them, how much merchandise I own, how long I spend researching them … seeing bands live is the only way I feel ‘satisfied’, if you will. This is certainly the case here – I’ve been a massive AC/DC fan for nearly three years, but only now do I feel like I can really appreciate them. Seeing the stuff from the DVDs come to life – I never mentioned Angus’ duckwalking because he did it so much I wasn’t sure when to put it in. I kept watching him on the big screens, then saying to myself “No, Sarah, watch him through your OWN eyes. You can see him through a camera whenever the hell you want!”

However, there will always be some people who don’t appreciate this. Dad told us later about an absolutely wasted bloke near him who kept going for drinks, as did the guy two down from me. You can drink any time!

I only saw Dad once through the actual concert, and he was ‘giving it rock-all’ (his words) with his air guitar. I did look for him a few more times but could never find him. He saw us, though – I guess it was easier. Two pairs of flashing horns together on the front row.

Should I start summing up now? Probably. If I forget anything I can add it as notes.

I had immensely high expectations of AC/DC. They are world renowned as a brilliant live band. And when expectations are built so high, it takes a hell of a band to meet them. AC/DC didn’t meet them. They surpassed them by miles. I think that was why the show was the best I’ve ever seen – part of the reason, anyway. Mostly it was because the show was so damn spectacular. The last few weeks have been just like I’m fourteen again, getting into the band for the first time. I’ve barely stopped listening to them. I didn’t forget how good they are: it’s just all been refreshed.

I guess that’s it.

One more thing.

I LOVE ANGUS. Sure he’s ugly as hell – as Dad and I also discussed – but he is the reason I play guitar.

NOTES

- During one song, which I think was ‘Thunderstruck’, there was a camera under the stage following Angus as he duckwalked.

- (First draft) as it’s now twenty past twelve, this log took eleven days. Not half bad considering all the AS-levels I’ve got coming up! (Second draft) the finished version you are reading now was finished on Tuesday, 19 May 2009. It took four weeks. Is that twenty eight days? Yes, I think so.

- Again, the italics thing was driving me mad. So I wrote song titles like ‘that’ and emphasised things like THAT. That’s where there are meant to be italics.

Stone Gods, Newcastle 02 Academy 2

2009-04-26T20:49:00.002+01:00

Finally, I can get down to writing this damn thing! I’ve been so busy finishing off Hot Leg that I haven’t been able to start it. It’s now Wednesday, 25th March, and the show was Saturday. Oh well. I’m doing it now; that’s all that counts.

Saturday was a beautiful day. Proper warm and sunny – I got up quite early (for me) and went straight for a shower. I was planning on having curly hair again so I needed to re-wash it. When I got dressed I made sure I was wearing posh underwear again. The exact same underwear I wore to Hot Leg, actually … it’s like a concert ritual. It has to match. At any other time I don’t give a crap.

I put on my dark pink socks with light pink dots, my black jeans and my Airbourne shirt. First time I’d worn a band shirt to a concert before. Stone Gods were going to be the first band I’d seen for the second time – the first time supporting Airbourne on the main stage. This time, I’d checked the tickets – they were going to be at Academy 2. We were going to try for the front again. Or somewhere near.

The morning was like any other. We are breakfast and did other morningy type stuff before going off to town. I wore my Vans, but no jacket, because it was just that sunny. We had a lot to do so we took the car down and parked near the dentist. The next day would be Mother’s Day and we needed flowers for Mum’s grave.

There was a climbing wall outside the town hall for the Everest fund. Dad quite fancied a go on it, but apparently his jeans were too tight to climb properly. When we were walking up the street having just bought hay and wood shavings for the guinea pigs, two people I knew from college actually came up to us with leaflets for it.

Something really cool happened when we were buying flowers. Dad had gone into the stall to pay for them while Amy and I waited just at the entrance. I saw this woman in a Rolling Stones t-shirt and I was looking at her to assess her for poserness. You can’t be too careful these days. I mean, New Look sell them! Teenage girls wear them because they like the look of the funny tongue! This woman, however, seemed to pass my test. She was wearing it properly. And, just when I decided this, she actually came up to us and asked if we knew whether or not Airbourne had tour dates planned for the near future! It’s always my hope, that when I wear a band shirt someone will show interest in it, but it rarely comes true. As a result I was overjoyed – we talked about Airbourne and other music for several minutes. Dad returned and joined in. The woman said she’d never laughed so much at a concert before, and Dad agreed that Joel O’Keeffe was indeed a good showman. She, like me, had a sister who had similar music tastes to her and they used to go to concerts together. We told her a bit about what else we were into and mentioned that we were going to see AC/DC next month. Unfortunately she, like so many other people, had missed out on tickets.

After a good chat about awesome music, we said bye to her and moved on, eventually returning to the car. Dad told us that Charlotte was in Brompton with Courtney watching the girls’ football team, as Courtney quite fancied joining. We drove up to see them. At first it was hard to find them, until we figured out that the girls were playing behind the school. We went around and found our way to the side of the pitch where Charlotte and Courtney were watching. It was perfect football weather, for playing and watching. Amy had a friend who was subbed in at the second half.

We chatted and watched. I hadn’t seen Charlotte in a fortnight and Courtney in longer, so we had a few mildly interesting things to talk about – Charlotte had been to see Slumdog Millionaire with her Nana and she asked me what I’d thought. We agreed it had been a really good film.

Just into the second half, Dad had to go to meet his friends Nick and Dawn in town to show them some bikes. I decided to go home – I was thirsty as hell and growing increasingly worried about the state of our lunch. We’d bought Fatso’s sandwiches. Fresh sandwiches in a black Land Rover in the sun … eurgh. Off chicken tikka.

So Dad dropped me off at home while he went back into town. The first thing I did was put the sandwiches in the fridge to cool down. I was really hungry but I wanted to wait for Dad and Amy before I ate. I did have a snack, though, and downed quite a lot of water. I was so thirsty.

Because it was such a lovely, sunny day, I put the run under the trampoline where all the long grass is for the guinea pigs to eat. It was only just starting to get nice weather-wise, so they weren’t used to grass, and I had to ensure they didn’t eat too much and get diarrhoea. Lovely. It’s a funny idea when you say their names, though – Axl and Slash with diarrhoea. Hahaha!

I sat on the trampoline with my Vans and cleaned them. I do this obsessively – I love them so much that I can’t bear it when they’re muddy, so I try to make sure they aren’t. Of course, they’ll never be as perfect as they were when I bought them, but they’re close enough.

Dad and Amy came back after a bit – Amy informed me that Brompton had lost, but that they played well. Then we ate lunch! I was starving. It was the last day of the Six Nations rugby so we watched that. England v Scotland at Twickenham … Aunty Caroline was there. I was insanely jealous.

After lunch, the ‘getting ready for Stone Gods’ commenced! Due to my anticipation it was probably way too early, but oh well. I straightened my fringe, covered myself in Ralph Lauren Rocks!, put on my jacket (complete with about £70 in cash in the pockets), put on my Vans and did other wholesome, getting ready activities. Dad gave me £10 for lunch, then took it back and gave me £20 to include train tickets as well. I stuffed this in my jeans pocket. I was already carrying my phone, my camera and some spare batteries in there, resulting in very awkward shaped fronts of my legs.

Dad offered us a lift to the station, but we wanted to walk. Way more exciting! I made sure I had the tickets, and the sweets I’d bought from the sweet stall in town, before we set off. Whooo!

Amy and I got to the station first. I was really warm in my stupid denim jacket, but it was essential for money concealing purposes. We waited under the shelter due to the fact that there were some disgustingly repulsive chavs sitting on the bench. I swear they were making comments about our matching t-shirts. Wasn’t it obvious we were going to a concert? I even had the tickets in my hand. One of them spat on the floor. What a minger.

Ellan soon arrived. She, like me and Amy, was wearing jeans and a denim jacket. Double denim! How awesome we looked. We chatted and stuff while we waited for Steph. Ellan had a little bag, which she was going to have to hide later. You’re not supposed to bring them into the Academy.

The awful chavs went away at some point, so we decided to sit down as we were bored and tired from all the waiting for Steph we were doing. The floor was still spattered with chav spit, though, which we had to avoid. Because the bench was in the shade, the metal was cold on my bum. Brr.

After what felt like years but was only a few minutes, Steph finally arrived. Not only was she slightly late, she WASN’T WEARING double denim AND her ticket was different to ours! Tut! She had her Sublime shirt on and a black velvet jacket and she, like Ellan, had a bag. Which would need concealing later. Because she’d only decided she was coming a few days before the show, she’d printed her ticket off herself and it was on a piece of paper.

Now that she’d arrived, we went to buy the train tickets. The same guy served us who had given us the timetable the previous Thursday. The tickets were extortionate. Almost Dad’s whole £20 for an adult and a chuld single. My God. It had cost just under a tenner for me and Amy to get to Middlesbrough and back the Saturday before.

When Ellan had paid, she came out of the door laughing – the guy had called her ‘ma’am’. “Do I LOOK like a ‘ma’am’?” she demanded of us. No way. None of us are remotely ma’am-like, and almost definitely never will be.

We went through the subway to our platform where I couldn’t resist starting on my sweets. I offered them round, of course – I had cherries and fried eggs, along with marshmallows. (These were for Amy – she’d given up sweets and chocolate for Lent, but apparently marshmallows don’t count as sweets). Ellan and Amy had a marshmallow each, but Steph’s vegetarian and it was highly likely that everything contained gelatine. I told her my dream instead – I know it’s not the same! – where she, Amy and me all went to see Lynyrd Skynyrd.

We didn’t have long to wait for the train, only about ten minutes. It was a busy train though. We agreed we’d stick in pairs if we couldn’t all sit together, but luckily Steph and Ellan found a table for four. It was covered in a dismantled newspaper and two empty plastic bottles.

The journey was fun. Amy and I were riding backwards so we were all happy and hyper and stuff. Even more so, I mean. I broke into my sweets a bit more, too, eating quite a few of them. It was really warm on the train. They were getting all nice and squishy. In the end I got Ellan to take them away from me.

Amy and I were sure that Spurs were playing that day. With Ellan’s help we found the sports pages of the paper and we were indeed playing. We talked football a little bit. Steph was disinterested at this point.

One thing about the train journey in particular that I really like was the fact that we went around corners. On the journeys I usually take the tracks tend to be straight, so I got all tripped out. A daft little thing, I know, but amusing.

We stopped at Durham and the whole place was so neat and nice. Steph expressed her jealousy at not living in such a tidy place.

When we arrived in Newcastle, we had to go on a bridge over the Tyne, and I was a little bit freaked out – looking out of the window it felt sort of like we were flying. Being my usual paranoid self I started to wonder what would happen if the bridge collapsed. We were soon on the other side though.

The train station at Newcastle is quite a big one. We pulled into it and started getting ready to get off. I turned to get out of my seat and came face to face with a guy’s bum. Ew. I turned back quickly and waited until everyone else had got off before I did the same.

We followed the crowds out of the station and onto the street. Whooo! Newcastle. First things first: get our bearings. I think Ellan took the tickets off me and put them in her bag but she could’ve done this back home. I knew the Academy was quite nearby, and once I found that I’d know my way into town. Hoping to God I’d be able to find my way around, we set off. It was only a couple of minutes before we arrived on the street where the Academy is, and went off down there. We hadn’t gone far when I found a small music shop. Our first cool, little shop of the day! We went in. It was all weird music though. There was only one woman in there and I’d heard of hardly any of the bands on sale – they were all international artists of unusual genres. What I di find was an album by Big Joe Williams – AC/DC covered his song ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’.

I wanted to see another little music shop that Charlotte had showed me, because every time I’d seen it in the past it had been shut. It wasn’t far from the Academy, and it was sort of underground.

Going in the shop was somewhere between heaven and hell. Heaven because there were tons and tons of amazing and rare albums, hell because we couldn’t buy any. We had nowhere to keep them and none of us wanted to have stuff on us to protect during the gig. We had to make do with having a good look around, moaning and crying when we found any particularly awesome things that we really wanted. For me, these things included several Iron Maiden singles collections, ‘Live at Donington’, Bruce Dickinson’s album ‘Accident of Birth’ and the single ‘Tears of the Dragon’, the Scorpions album ‘Blackout’ which I can never find anywhere, and a collection of rare AC/DC songs with Bon. Even though there was only one song on there that I didn’t already have – ‘Rockin’ in the Parlour’ – it was still really cool. There was a photo of Bon on the front, smiling in a red shirt and holding a glass. On the back, there was a slightly more disturbing picture – ‘ACDC’ written across the band’s backs with Angus acting as the lightning bolt in the middle, wearing nothing but socks and his SG. Eurgh.

Just before we finally left, we were browsing the bargain bins in front of the counter, whinging to ourselves: “Why did we come in here?” “This is torture!” etc. There were two young guys behind the counter, and one of them started talking to us. He had longish hair, and he was wearing a rather weird t-shirt – a creature with a fly’s head, a woman’s body including breasts, but also with a penis. This penis was erect. The shirt featured the words ‘Sex Wound’.

We told him about the show, and how we couldn’t buy anything because we didn’t want to take it in with us. He presumed we were going to see Airbourne due to Amy’s and my t-shirts, so we explained that we were actually going to see the band who supported them, Stone Gods. He said his friend had told him about the gig. Then he asked if we’d heard of Sex Wound. I looked at his t-shirt and said “I have now”.

It turned out the two guys were in the band, and the one talking had designed the t-shirt. He asked us if we liked it – I had no idea what to say. Ellan liked it, though. She genuinely did and all – she said later that the only problem with it was that a girl wouldn’t be able to get away with wearing it. That was true. It was definitely a man’s shirt. I told him very truthfully that it was a ‘scare your granny’ type t-shirt, and he seemed satisfied.

It was sad to move on from that awesome little shop, but also somewhat of a relief. We noted their website, which was written on the side of the shop: it was beatdownrecords.co.uk. I will definitely be going back there. It was mint.

We headed out towards the town centre again, back past the Academy this time. There were already a collection of teenagers in dark clothes hanging around on the steps.

Mainly to assure myself I knew the way around Newcastle, I took them to that big, pretty building that has a cinema and a whole bunch of restaurants (though this could’ve been after we went to the other CD shop, I can’t remember properly). Reassuringly we got to the cinema place OK, and although there’s nothing to do there unless you want to see a film, have a meal, go to the toilet or gamble, we walked around, going up the escalators (where a girl ran past us screaming she was going to be sick, but laughing at the same time) and down in the lift, which was full of kids. Whenever it moved, I sang “Going doooowwwwn!”

We checked out the cinema listings but the one film I was interested in seeing – the one about Anvil – wasn’t there.

I proposed a walk down to the Tyne next. For two simple reasons: I knew where ti was and it was free.

This proved to be way more difficult than I’d first anticipated. To begin with I was in familiar territory, but soon enough I took a wrong turning and had absolutely no idea where I was. I didn’t let on, though – I was confident I’d find the river eventually. After all, how hard could it be? There were signs and stuff. I followed these, and used my sense of direction, until we finally arrived at the Tyne bridge … yay!

Hang on. We were meant to be under it …

Well, we were almost there. I found a subway and took everyone a bit further down, but still not as far as I would like to be. There weren’t many people around which sort of scared me. Plus, Ellan and Steph were lagging behind – neither of them like exercising that much.

Amy was a turd to me when I was panicking slightly. I asked her for the time, and she told me it was half six … like a sucker, I crapped myself, and we proceeded to argue about my sense of humour.

We got there in the end! Whooo! Back to the people, right by the river. A straight road to the Millenium Bridge. When we got there, we sat on a bench for a bit of a rest after tons of slopey walking. I wasn’t tired but I had the feeling that Steph and Ellan were. I asked them if they wanted to come on the bridge – the whole reason we were there, after all – and they didn’t. So me and Amy went on it alone, jumping up and down to make it move and taking pictures of the view. I didn’t dare leave the other two on their own for too long, though, so we pretty soon set off back.

There are two big buildings on the other side of the river: the Baltic and a big, shiny one. Steph asked me what it was called, but I couldn’t remember so I texted Dad. He replied with ‘Baltic or sage i think x x x’. That’d be the Sage, then.

The way back was relatively more simple than the way there. I followed the route Charlotte had taken us on, lost it, but still returned to the main bit of town very quickly to my immense relief. I had another sit down, again more for the benefit of Ellan and Steph, particularly Ellan, than myself. This sit wasn’t nice – very cold stone wall.

We decided it was about time to eat again, so we started making our way towards Greggs. Steph had been complaining about needing the toilet for quite a while, and on the way there we passed a really weird, space-age toilet thing on the street designed for disabled people. It was coin operated. Steph was a bit freaked out by it so I went first (there was a 20p already in the coin thingy). It was well strange! A voice talked to me all the time I was in there. However, there was one problem: the only reason I’d wanted to go to the toilet wasn’t in there. When I emerged, I informed everyone of my highly interesting experience on the toilet, and we moved on for food. We’d find a normal, sane, free, non-talking regular toilet.

I had a sausage and bean melt and Fanta, and Amy had a pizza baguette and Dr Pepper. I also bought a packet of rainbow cakes – they contained no sweets or chocolate in case Amy wanted one.

We sat one some benches near the freaky-deaky toilet to eat. Whilst I had my mind on other things, a bald Geordie man came over to me and pretended to nick off with my pasty. Because I wasn’t watching properly I didn’t realise he was joking, and I jumped really badly and tried to hide it away. The man and all of his friends started laughing at me so I said “I’m starving!” loudly after him to try to excuse my action. All I did was make myself look even more of a turd.

I’m sure you’ve all experienced this next problem – your rubbish trying to fly away. Mine did this, and when I tried to rescue it I slammed my fingertips on the bench, breaking two of my nails extremely painfully – one of them was my strumming nail! This one broke in layers. Even now, almost a fortnight later, it’s not ideal for playing guitar with. (Today is April 23rd and it’s long again. Yay!)

Steph and I ate two of my cakes, and I carried the rest of my Fanta and the remaining two around with me, too full to finish them but convinced I’d eat them later. We headed back to the cinema complex where we were sure there’d be a toilet. There was, so we all went. It was really funny – you could hear both Steph and me doing ‘feminine things’ at almost the same time, and the pair of us started laughing. We also used this opportunity to sort out Ellan and Steph’s bags in front of the mirror. They looked OK hidden under their jackets.

While we were in there, I found an arcade game that involved riding a motorbike. I hadn’t been on one in years, so I said I’d have a go providing I had the change. It only cost £1 and I had a pound coin … I jumped on. It was fun. I never brake or change gear on games like this. In fact, all I do is accelerate and turn. I came fourth, which wasn’t bad. I’d played as a slutty-looking woman and ran into quite a lot of people. They tended to fall off and practically fly away whilst I remained unharmed. Ah, just like real life …

Time to make our way back towards the Academy. There was a little bit of a queue when we got there, but it was just over an hour until doors and I didn’t want to stand there for all that time, so I took everyone down to the square in front of the Life centre. There was a big sculpture containing an emo (well – he was sitting on it). He had two friends with him – one boy, one girl – who were sitting on the floor making out. Dirty, dirty emos.

Steph and Ellan hid their bags while I disposed of my leftover food responsibly. I put it next to a bin just in case a hungry hungry hobo fancied a snack. After all, it seemed a shame to waste two rainbow cakes and the best part of a bottle of Fanta.

I returned and took a photo of Steph putting her jacket on, simply because she looked a turd. She took a few more minutes and we went back to the Academy, for real this time. A couple more people had joined the queue but it was still relatively short. A few people ahead of us there was this bloke we know from college called Callum. Steph thinks he’s cool, because he has dreadlocks. He’s kind of annoying, though. I was surprised to see a familiar face. I guess I sometimes just forget that I’m not the only person who exists and does stuff outside of school.

The queue gradually got longer, but not by much. I think we were waiting there somewhere between half an hour and forty five minutes. I was dead excited – I’d never queued until doors before, just sort of turned up afterwards. It wasn’t as boring as I’d expected it to be, either. We talked about random stuff and played various awesome songs on Amy’s phone. At one point two ugly women with bleached blonde hair and disgusting outfits went past and Callum was shouting “Oh my God! What the F*CK is that?” and stuff for ages. I couldn’t stop laughing. We saw quite a few Airbourne shirts, which made sense, as that’s how quite a lot of people found out about Stone Gods.

We devised a plan of action to be carried out once we got inside – two of us would go to buy shirts, and two of us would run for the barrier, then we’d swap. Or something like that.

The doors opened a bit late. Initially we’d been told they were at seven, but I got an e-mail a few days before the show telling me it had been moved back half an hour. More like twenty five minutes! GOD! Once we did get to the doors, the security guys stopped Steph from going in for a minute, but she didn’t get too far behind. We got our tickets checked. The guy didn’t rip them, he just scanned the bar code. Then we ran. All the way up the stairs and to Academy 2, me screaming “Run to the hills!” all along the way. It was practically empty, and we managed to grab spots on the second row again, to the right this time. Well – it’s not really organised into rows, but you know what I mean. Around that general area. As you can see, our plan of action fell through. Callum and his friends were a bit to the left of us.

As the place was only filling up relatively slowly, I decided I’d try for a t-shirt. I instructed everyone to keep my place before dashing off. I found out why the place was so quiet, though – they were all hanging around the t-shirt stall. It wasn’t worth it. I’d take my chances after the show. I rushed back to claim my place, and the venue steadily grew busier.

This is one thing I’m a little bit confused about – the songs over the sound system. I’ve remembered all the ones I knew but not exactly when they were on. I’ll just write it this way and hope it’s right.

‘Shout at the Devil’ was on quite near the start, to which Amy and I nodded and sang along hardcorely. And I’m quite sure that was the only one I knew that was on before the bands.

The first band came on way sooner than I’d expected. I knew the support was supposed to be a band called Black Spiders – sure enough, their name was on the bass drum. They were all wearing a lot of black and they looked pretty moody. I think that this was because we didn’t appreciate them enough. I quite enjoyed their set, thinking I might buy their album afterwards. They sang a song (in the first draft they apparently sang a sock) which basically went ‘who the f*ck are you?’ and another one about how crap reality TV is. I totally agree! I hate reality TV!

I took a few photos but not many, as I was saving my memory for Stone Gods.

After the band went off, I told the other three my theory about why they had looked angry. Ellan admitted that she hadn’t been that into them. I was a bit surprised. I hadn’t stopped mildly headbanging (i.e. nodding) all the way through, and my neck was really aching. Ellan went off to the bar for a drink, and returned a bit later.

A few guys came on to mess with the stuff on-stage. Soundchecky type guys. Steph said something to me about really wanting that job, just coming on the stage and playing the guitars for a little bit for a band. Then, the ‘roadies’ started up a tune.

WHAT?

These weren’t Stone Gods! They were just a bunch of guys with long hair and moustaches! (Five of them, but the singer had a guitar so there were three of those). I noticed, however, that the drum kit still had Black Spiders on it. Could these guys be them?

Aha. The singer introduced the band as Black Spiders before yelling “F*ck you, Newcastle!” We had to yell back, complete with gestures – all together, then just us girls, then the guys. Steph told me later that she felt embarrassed whenever people swore, where Amy said she’d been genuinely annoyed at being sworn at because she’d (well, I’d) paid to see them. She’d been very sincere in her ‘f*ck you’s and one of the guitarists had noticed, and laughed at her.

The genuine Black Spiders were all right. I think I preferred the other band, though.

There was one thing about this lot that really stuck out – their drummer. He was INSANE. Think mad as Nicko McBrain and evil as Satan, combined with a beard. Honestly. We were all freaked out by him.

Again, Ellan went for a drink after the band went off. However, this time she didn’t come back. I found out throughout the show, via text, that she’d also gone to the bathroom to splash water on her dace, and settled at the back.

There were a few cool songs on between Black Spiders and the headliners. The first of these was ‘Ace of Spades’. You can tell which songs are known by everyone because you can hear them all singing. There was one song that I didn’t recognise for ages, despite the fact that loads of people were singing along. It was only when Amy sang “bam-a-lam!” in my face that I realised it was ‘Black Betty’, but not the original. I hadn’t recognised the style it had been covered in, which was much heavier. It was quite good, though, and a lot of fun. The third cool song was ‘Stand Up For Rock ‘N’ Roll’ by Airbourne – excellent choice. There were tons of Airbourne shirts, and it’s extremely likely that the majority of the crowd were Airbourne fans. Again, everyone was singing and really enjoying themselves.

One really, really, really annoying thing happened before the band came on, though. A dude fainted on us. That’s right, FAINTED. ON us. Literally – he had his head on Steph’s shoulder. Amy said he glared at her when he came round. She reckoned he’d been faking it, which seemed highly probable, as he’d had his eyes open and, when his friends had tried to grab him back he wouldn’t move for ages – evidently, he’d been trying to sneak his way forward, the dirty dog. Luckily he went back eventually, when his friends made him get a drink. It sort of ruined my night a bit, though. I was all panicky and shaky for quite a while afterwards. Plus, because we’d all shifted around, I had a slightly less good view.

Pretty soon, though, the lights went down, and the ‘Indiana Jones’ theme music came on. Stone Gods time! They came on from the side we were at, resulting in loads of cheering, much louder than anything so far, and launched into their biggest single ‘Don’t Drink the Water’. Richie Edwards had shaved off his beard! He resembled a boiled egg.

For me, this opener seemed strange. I’d been expecting ‘Burn the Witch’ like last time, but shows are never exactly the same, and I wasn’t bothered. Especially as I got to do the dancey bit! It had looked so awesome at Airbourne that I’d been looking forward to it as much as the concert itself, just about. Amy remarked later that it wasn’t as fun as she’d expected – what had she expected? It was only jumping up and down to music! Even so, I knew what she meant. Again, even so, I loved it.

The next song was ‘You Brought a Knife to a Gunfight’, one of my favourites. It was almost exactly like at Airbourne – I loved doing the hand gestures accompanied by the shouty “F*CK YOU”s.

After this, Richie talked to us. I think it was here that he told us about the first tour date – ours. He said that when they’d been told that the first date was going to be Newcastle they’d been really pleased. I’m still not sure if he was just saying it – he swore he wasn’t, and Dad said on the way back that he’s noticed there is something about Newcastle. But still. Pretty much all singers say stuff like that.

Anyway, he went on to say that they’d never done the next song before, making me feel kind of special. And to my surprise, the song was ‘Making it Hard’, my personal favourite if I had to choose one. You could sort of tell they’d never played it, because to me it sounded slightly flat, but it was mint anyway. I love the song – it’s so nice and feel-good, yet filthy and double-entendre-y at the same time.

Again, Richie talked after this song. He switched his guitar for an acoustic, and said it meant one of three things. It could mean they were going to play ‘Lazy Bones’ (a few people cheered) ‘Oh Where ‘O My Beero’ (well he called it ‘Beero’ – quite a few people cheered for this one, including me, because I do like ‘Beero’ – but I’d figured out what the third option would be and I wanted that one so I cheered quite quietly) or ‘Magdalen Street’. This got the loudest cheer, I think because we all knew they were going to play it no matter what we cheered for. They did.

I’d vowed to myself that this show, I was going to concentrate more on enjoying myself than taking loads of pictures and videos. I’d decided to take a few decent pictures, make one whole-song video and leave it at that. ‘Magdalen Street’ was this song. I’d filmed from right at the end of the previous song to make sure I got it all in, which meant I also got the guitar swap. It was so cool – I adore the song, partially because it’s about me (haha – Charlotte the Harlot eat you heart out) but also because it’s a good song. I loved their performance of it, especially as it was my first time seeing it live. I’d been disappointed when they hadn’t done it at Airbourne.

To make use of the guitar, they played another acoustic song – ‘Lazy Bones’. This song’s quite slow and calm, which was all right. Nice. It wasn’t amazing but it was fine. I can’t actually remember much about it.

After this, Richie switched guitars to a white Gibson Explorer, saying it was time for some “f*cking heavy metal!” I expected ‘Defend or Die’ but they played ‘Knight of the Living Dead’, which I actually like better so I didn’t mind at all. I thought there might be a mosh pit or something when the song goes all fast, but there wasn’t, and I was glad – for me, mosh pits are pretty pointless, because they make it hard to concentrate on the music itself. I only go in them when I don’t know the song that’s being played. ‘Knight of the Living Dead’ is another one with fun f-words in it. Hooray for obscene gestures!

Right at the beginning of the next song, Richie got us all singing the chorus, so of course we all knew what it was right away:

“Hey – this is the start of something
Whoa – we’re on our way
This is the start of something
We don’t care what they say
We’ll do it our way.”

What a pretty song. It’s all right. Not one of my favourites but good live, it’s very singable.

The next one was ‘I’m With the Band’. I like that one a lot. There’s a line in it that goes ‘it’s been a while since my clothes were clean but I/I kinda like it that way’. The dirty egg changed this to ‘since my c*ck was clean’. What a sicko! An amusing sicko, though. And he came in the crowd! Not near us, unfortunately, but still it’s always cool when people do that. You know that if and when they get really famous, they will become far too important.

When he got back on-stage, he started butt kissing – the butt in question being his own. He basically said that the next song would be the last, unless we cheered loud enough when they went off. We didn’t need to be told, but we could hardly tell him that. And so into ‘Defend or Die’, again with the Explorer. Much headbanging was participated in by all, but no mosh pits again … I used to not like this song. That changed though. I do now. It was brilliant live.

Once that was done, they went off, knowing full bloody well they’d be straight back on again, the smarmy gits. Not that I minded – I wanted more. I wanted ‘Beero’, for crying out loud! So, along with everyone else, I yelled “Stone Gods! Stone Gods!” etc. and, lo and behold, they returned! And leapt right into ‘Burn the Witch’, the song I’d thought they’d open with. So I enjoyed it all the more after anticipating it for the whole show. There’s something about it live that makes it incredibly awesome – you know, one of those songs that you always imagine being played live even when you’re just listening to it on the album? It has a lot of soloing and stuff at the end. Lots more headbanging! And fast bits that might have induced a mosh pit or two, but, again, didn’t. I’m actually listening now and reliving it. It was mint.

They tried something a bit different next. Richie said the next song was a tribute to someone from around here – my mind immediately went “Jonna!” Alas, it wasn’t Brian Johnson. It wasn’t anyone good. It was Cheryl bloody Tweedy – Richie refused to call her Cheryl Cole. It seemed weird, as rockers generally hate reality TV, as demonstrated by Hate Gallery (as I found out later the first support band were called). Stone Gods played a rocked-up version of Girls Aloud’s shitey song ‘Something Kinda Ooh’ which, needless to say, was better than the original. I filmed a bit of it. It was funny, despite my hatred of Cheryl, Girls Aloud, all girl bands, reality TV and that stupid song.

Then there was one last song. Yep! ‘Oh Where ‘O My Beero’! I was well happy. It’s a brilliant song. All singalongy, And it’s about beer and stuff. A real drinking song. I really enjoyed the final song of the night, even though it’s always a bit sad.

We cheered them as they left the stage. They’d done a great gig. I thought they’d played the album in its entirety – I realised later, though, that they’d missed two songs. There’s one called ‘Wasting Time’ and another called ‘Where You Coming From’ that I don’t think they did. If I didn’t notice, though, I can’t have missed them that much.

‘More Than a Feeling’ came on over the sound system, one of my favourite songs of all time. Because I’d been exposed to so much loud noise, it sounded all fuzzy and kind of sharp, so I was probably singing along all wrong.

Now to get out/find Ellan. She texted me: ‘at end meet at tshirts’. That made sense. We started to slowly shuffle our way out. We followed a lad with a Maiden shirt. It was one of those (unofficial, I think – tut tut!) ones with the band on the back – I therefore spent the whole time sort of cooing over Bruce.

The t-shirt stall was busy. Very busy. And we still had to buy stuff. As I was passing the table, someone said “Airbourne!” loudly to me. I looked up and saw the drummer from Black Spiders. Yes – the evil one! The band were there with their single and mailing list. I got chatting to them and they were actually really nice. One of them asked me if I’d seen them supporting Airbourne and the drummer told him that was only in Europe. Haha. I decided I’d buy their album. It was just beside them, with another guy. I bought it off him and asked one of the Black Spiders if they’d sign it.

It wasn’t their album. Crap! It was the other support band’s! Hate Gallery’s! And I’d just asked Black Spiders to sign it! I tried to explain my mistake but I don’t know if it got through. I was so embarrassed ... I think they thought that I’d thought they were Hate Gallery when in reality I’d just thought that Hate Gallery’s album was theirs. I signed their mailing list, though, so I could see when their actual album came out.

Hate Gallery were signing, but it was really busy and I couldn’t be bothered to wait. We moved towards the shirts where we could see Ellan waiting at the top of the stairs.

Steph and I gave Amy money to buy shirts with. They were cool shirts too – the Stone Gods logo in gold over a picture of playing cards and stuff with the dates on the back. I was glad they still had our sizes.

We met Ellan and headed off downstairs and outside, where we met Dad. We walked from the Academy to the car somewhat subdued. We passed the bin where I’d left my hobo food – it was still there. Hungry and very, very thirsty, Steph and I were very tempted to snatch it back, but neither of us are quite that low. We left it. And sort of regretted it once we were in the car. Amy luckily found an abandoned bottle of unopened water in one of the compartmenty type things in there, and we all shared it – we felt very after-giggy. Ellan filled us in about where she’d been, including her nice Dan view. Amy and I tried to find consolation (we were sad the show was over, of course) in the fact that our next gig was in a month’s time. Apart from that, though, we were so shattered we barely talked.

It was the usual routine – getting all snuggly and warm before getting a taste of the cold when we dropped Steph and Ellan off, then having to practically submerge ourselves in cold air when we arrived home. I had a drink and went to bed pretty much straight away, after laying out my t-shirt for later wear.

Overall, it was a good show. I couldn’t fault it. But it was the other things that ruined it, so the night itself could’ve been better, I think.

My diary entry for that day read something like this:

’21 Saturday STONE GODS
I’m currently listening to the ‘Harry Potter’ soundtrack to stop the ringing in my ears. Today was rather awesome! We went into town where we got talking to a woman about Airbourne and other bands. Then we went to see Charlotte and Courtney, who were watching Brompton girls play. THEN, after a couple of hours of other stuff, Amy, Ellan, Steph and me were on the train to NEWCASTLE! We had a few hours there before retiring to the Academy for Stone Gods. It was a great show, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t feel completely satisfied. Maybe because some loser FAINTED on us.’

I know that it’s wrong to compare Stone Gods to Hot Leg. It’s unfair. But I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I prefer Stone Gods’ music – however, to be honest, I enjoyed Hot Leg’s show much more.
Notes

-The next day I got diarrhoea. The guinea pigs were fine. (TMI, maybe? You should know me by now!)

-I saw the tour ad later in an old issue of Kerrang! and, ues, Hate Gallery WERE listed as support. I'm just unobservant.

-I finished the first draft of this on Wednesady, 15th April - as usual, it took me too long.

-I don't think I mentioned that Richie didn't suit his talking voice. It's really high pitched and posh.

-Due to the nature of text on here, anything that was originally in italics is written like 'this' or THIS depending on its context. It really annoys me, though!

-Those lyrics are Stone Gods', not mine. Obviously.

Hot Leg, Newcastle

2009-03-25T14:04:00.002Z

It is now two minutes to three on Monday, 9th March (end of final draft - five minutes past two on Wednesday, 25th March) and I get the feeling this gig log is going to be hard. So I’ll just get straight on with the damn thing before I go off to work early and do the time I lost last Friday.

OK, so I woke up to Chickens and felt my usual nervous butterflies. However, I am getting used to them now, so I got up in pretty good time and got ready. I’d planned my clothes, of course, to save time later – I wore coloured/grey stripy socks, matching black (slightly slutty, but I’d liked the bra) underwear, my Criminal Damage jeans with the stars, my Trooper shirt and eventually my AC/DC denim jacket. I hadn’t planned on that, but it was too warm for a bigger one and too cold for none at all. I had £50.02 in cash in one of the little button-up pockets so that I didn’t forget to bring money that night.

Amy and I listened to Stone Gods for a bit, as Hot Leg had been in my alarm clock. Until, of course, we decided that that was silly, and I brought Red Light Fever downstairs. We listened to it about two and a half times before she, and I, set off to school. Nana told us to have a nice night – Cocktails had been on Scuzz the night before and we’d told her we were going to see the band who were playing it. She told me I had to ‘scream and shout’. Good advice indeed!

I put on my boxing boots and set off. It was a fresh, sunny day – proper spring weather – when I started walking to school, making sure I had a bit of a listen to hot Leg on the way. But it was weird. I met Beth and Grace as usual, then we walked on to Laura’s and nothing felt different. I did talk a bit about the show to remind them I was going, though that was about it.

The excitement built a bit when Steph arrived at Laura’s. This would be the first show I went to with friends, and not just family (although, of course, Amy was going too).

I ticked off my last day of the Hot Leg countdown in my academic diary in form. Grace told me how many days it was until John Barrowman – she’s extremely excited.

First lesson was French. We talked a bit about football and French footballers before we very briefly started on music. Mrs Kiernan set us some vocab, and when I got out my diary to write it in Laura saw what was written there.

“Oh, is Hot Leg tonight?” she asked me. Or something like that, anyway. Of course, I responded in the affirmative.

Next came Media, the lesson I share with Steph. We got a bit of a chance to talk gig excitement, but most of the lesson was taken up with watching the last part of the last episode of Life on Mars. Even though the ending sort of breaks the golden rule of English: ‘Never end by saying “I woke up and it was all a dream”’, I still thought it was pretty clever. I want to watch more of it now. I especially like the cool 70s soundtrack!

At break, we went to meet everyone else. I’d seen Ellan briefly earlier, but only to wave stupidly at. Her, Steph and I had a bit of a hyper discussion. We sorted the details of what would be happening later, i.e. Dad would pick them up at around six-ish. I told them to bring as little stuff as possible, and a jacket they could easily wrap around their waists. Of course, we’d be standing – my first time! I’d been to Richmond Live where I stood, but outside. But it was going to be Ellan and Steph’s first Academy gig altogether – and their first real gig that they were both actually counting (Ellan had seen Busted, and Steph Christina Aguilera. I think they were both pretty embarrassed…)

During break, Tom asked me if I’d help him with the underskirt of the wedding dress he was making. Steph and I had a free next, so we both went to meet him at the Textiles room. On the way there I passed Matt, who asked me if I could make it to his gig. Even though I still wasn’t sure, I felt so rock ‘n’ roll! (Note – his gig was last Saturday (14th March) and I didn’t go. I had nobody to go with!)

Helping Tom involved holding a huge circle of netting for about half an hour while he pinned it. I would never have the patience. He is amazing. However, Steph and I did get rather bored. I took a few pictures of Tom and his work, then we listened to some tunes on my phone. The latter died down quickly, though, because Tom and I hardly have the same taste.

The dummy he was working on was insanely skinny. This led to a big thing about proper measurements, and we all ended up measuring ourselves. Tom and Steph have the same sized waist. Mine is the widest. Wow.

Eventually, we left him to get on with his dress alone, and we went to Becky’s where she was watching Torchwood with Beth and Chloë. Bleurgh – Torchwood. I’d brought my mp3 player and my speakers in case I got chance to force Hot Leg upon everyone, but no such luck. Torchwood continued on into lunchtime. Grace and Becky even tried to name all of the episodes without looking. Losers.

I always have two frees on Fridays due to a clash in my timetable. I spent the second free on a computer upstairs in the Resource Centre. I listened to quite a lot of Samson while I did some Ethics work (comparing Jeremy Bentham with John Stuart Mill) and English work (a speech opposing reality TV).

I actually had English last. It wasn’t a coursework lesson, though. In fact, it was just a daft, and extremely easy, one. Sarah and I had to make a poster about demonstrative pronouns. These are pronouns such as ‘this’ or ‘those’ which determine something already known by the speaker and listener(s). Erm. Yeah. I did tell Sarah about the gig, briefly. And she told me to have a good time as we left.

So that was college. Off to do an hour and a half of work!

I arrived just after half three (so, in the signing-in book, half three) and got straight on with my jobs (I usually eat, go to the toilet, do whatever, to kill time). It’s incredible what a bit of pressure can do. I managed to finish everything, except for a couple of sets of desks, that I would usually do in two hours and a half. I left before Ralph even arrived. So it surprised me when he drove up behind me on Helmsley Way to ask what I had and hadn’t done! He sounded as surprised as I had been when I said I’d managed to do almost everything.

Finally, home time. The excitement was really starting to build up. I ran to my room and stuck my phone on charge to give it a bit of extra juice, then changed into my black and purple Raven vest top.

Amy and I ate tea together; chicken, chips and beans. Quick, easy food that I really enjoyed as I hadn’t had it for absolutely ages. However, I couldn’t finish it. Damn nervous butterflies! I’m so stupid. I always get them, even though there’s nothing to be nervous about. I’m not the one performing!

Dad was all dressed up smart because while we were at the show he and Charlotte were going to find somewhere nice to eat. I did a last quick freshen up – this involved wetting my hair and blow drying it as big and curly as it would go, brushing my teeth, applying deodorant and covering myself in Anna Sui’s Dolly Girl Bonjour L’Amour perfume. I love perfume. It smells good.

At about five to six I put on my Iron Maiden Vans and we set off, tickets in hand. Well – as soon as I got in the car, I put them in one of the side pockets. I brought my water bottle again, but I had an extra one as Dad had brought another one each for me and Amy. I got drinking straight away – I didn’t want to risk being dehydrated! The last thing I wanted to do was get in there and pass out.

First, we picked Charlotte up. Dad went in the house to get her while Amy and I waited, slightly impatiently. She wasn’t long, though, and we drove the two long minutes to Ellan’s house, where she was watching for us out of her window. She had her hair down and she was wearing her leather jacket, and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen her so excited. I noticed she was wearing perfume, something I wouldn’t have expected of her, but decided not to mention it in case I was wrong.

We set off back to our side of town so we could grab Steph and get going. On the way there, Charlotte and Ellan said hi and got a bit better acquainted, as they’d never met before.

Because I couldn’t stop smelling perfume, I eventually asked Ellan what it was when we were almost at Steph’s. I think she said it was Fantasy by Britney Spears. I’m no Britney fan, but her perfumes are gorgeous.

I had to run into Steph’s house to get her. She was still in the bathroom – according to her mum, she’d been debating what to wear all night. So I yelled down the hall: “It’s not a beauty pageant!” She emerged in the end, and we went back to the car. She, like me, had a very noticeable camera-shaped bulge in one of her pockets, but I told her not to worry about it.

Back in the car, Amy had found a tin of beans that Dad had forgotten to bring inside for tea a couple of days ago. These beans provided a running joke for the whole journey.

We were well and truly on our way! Whoop! No denying the excitement now. As soon as we hit the main road, Amy made Charlotte put Red Light Fever on. We didn’t turn it up to eleven, though, because we were all talking so much. About really random, daft stuff – strange things that had happened at the Hugh Cornwell show Dad and Charlotte had seen the night before, like Dad standing up at the end when hardly anyone else would. Charlotte also told us about her niece’s ‘Hacca Macca’ (High School Musical) obsession. A lot of the time, Steph and Ellan couldn’t stop laughing, which was a nice way to break the ice.

Because Red Light Fever is quite a short album, we played it through once and a bit. I think we arrived in Newcastle at about twenty past seven. It was obviously dark, and we could see the lights of the city.

Dad was a bit wary of parking in the college car park – there was someone in there, and he looked quite official. We decided against it in the end, just in case we weren’t meant to park there. Instead, Charlotte showed Dad the side road where she parked for Kylie, and we went down there.

It was quite chilly outside. I temporarily forgot that my sister was in the back, and had to go and let her out. Once I had done this, we set off walking. It really was cold, adding to my amounting nerves. Why do I always get nervous? It gets kind of annoying!

We talked Hot Leg all the way there – of course. It was only around a ten minute walk, but it felt way longer. I was so cold and excited that I just wanted to arrive.

And arrive we did! To a quiet, empty road. I’d been expecting quite a long queue, or at least a few people waiting around outside, but there were only security dudes. The reason for this will become obvious in a minute, but back then, I couldn’t figure it out.

After a few words of warning, Dad and Charlotte let us go. We went to the dude outside, who directed us to the dude in the foyer, who took our tickets (he actually ripped off the rippy bits this time!) and directed us upstairs. I guess I didn’t really realise what he meant just then – I was more psyched that we’d successfully sneaked Amy into a gig – but as we went up the stairs, it all started to add up. The lack of people, the going up – we weren’t going to the Academy. We were going to Academy 2.

When I did realise, my excitement just about doubled. I’d never been in there before, but I knew it was considerably smaller, meaning a much more intimate show. What an awesome added bonus.

The t-shirt stall was just outside the final staircase up to the stage. Because we’d arrived about half an hour after doors, The Crave were already on, and we could hear them really clearly. I desperately wanted to go in. However, Amy and Steph both went to the toilet, so we had to wait. Ellan and I examined the shirts, deciding which ones we were going to get. I wanted one with the tour dates on it, but the only one of these had long sleeves. Plus, I noticed a misprint – instead of ‘March 4th’ it said ‘March 4nd’. Which was quiet cool, but that’s the kind of thing that would really start to annoy me after a while.

When Amy and Steph emerged, we all bought t-shirts so we could be sure we’d get the ones we wanted, and we’d avoid any rush after the show. I wanted a black one with the Hot Leg logo in orange, but they were sold out in my size, so I got a similar one with the logo as a white outline. Amy and Steph both got the yellow shirt with an orange logo, and Ellan got the grey one with the band carved into Mount Rushmore.

Finally, time to go in! One last flight of stairs and that was it. We were met by the venue and it was awesome. It was basically a club, with the stage at the other end. There was a bar on one side and a small balcony with a few stools on the other. I did a bit of research later and found out the capacity of the place is four hundred. Sure beats the two thousand we’d expected. No matter where we were, the sound and view were both really good … except for tall people! Honestly, why are rockers so tall? I thought I was until I went there. The majority of people towered above me.

The Crave were in full flow. Steph, I think, took a liking to them immediately – two of them had dreadlocks. However, I didn’t want to settle for a view from the back, so we began the quest to move forward, sneaking into whatever gaps we could. It wasn’t easy with four of us, especially through all the tall people, but eventually, thanks to Steph’s brainwave of following a rather large woman with beer, we arrived as far forward as we were ever going to get – the second row. We’d never get on the barrier, but we’d still done pretty well. And just in time to catch the end of the last song! Steph, the smallest of us, remarked that at least she saw them a bit.

When The Crave left the stage, we took a look at our surroundings. Steph was wedged between the people on the barrier and a little staircase, with Ellan next to her, and Amy and I were right at the foot of the stairs. Awkward positioning, awesome view. Totally worth it. I took my jacket off and tied it round my waist, then stuffed my new shirt up my top, out the way. You’d think it would be really hot in there with all those people, but the air conditioning was immense.

The music playing was annoying. It didn’t sound rocky in any way, shape or form, and I didn’t know any of it so I couldn’t sing along happily. It did make me want Hot Leg to come on even more, though.

A few dudes came on to do various sound checky bits and pieces, provoking rowdy chants of “Hot Leg! Hot Leg!” from us every now and then. This went on for a few songs.

Then, this one song came on that was considerably louder than the rest. I still didn’t know it but, like the Rolling Stones guy in Twickenham, I could feel it in my ribs. Surely, they had to be on soon.

Indeed they did. At the end of the song, the lights went down, and we all started yelling. That was it! I’d been counting down the days since mid-January and it was finally here.

The band came on. From the right-hand side as we were looking at them; all of them had their quirks, but Justin Hawkins! Wow. I could hardly believe that we were seeing him so close up. He was wearing black and green zebra striped trousers and a black jacket over a blue vest. His Hot Leg hair is well better than his old hair – shorter and bleached blonde. It suits his face more. He still looks ugly, but not as ugly. He was wearing tons of dark eye make-up, too. And black nail varnish.

They launched straight into Ashamed. I had expected them to open with Chickens, because it’s the first one on the album, but I didn’t mind because I love both songs equally. I got out my camera and took loads of pictures and a video. This was my first show with a working, non-phone camera so I went slightly insane.

The song was good, despite the lack of Beverlei Brown who features on the album. That’s probably a good thing, though – her voice kinds of drives me crazy. And Justin is perfectly capable of hitting immensely high notes by himself. It was amazing. He clearly has no balls. Maybe.

I think Justin said something here, but nothing major, otherwise I would’ve remembered it. The next song was introduced (and, apparently, played for us): I’ve Met Jesus. I guess they were playing it near the start to get it out the way, as it’s one of the ones that everyone knows really well, and would sort the posers from the real fans!

During this song, someone threw a beer on-stage. At the end, Justin addressed him: “Whoever threw that beer, you’ve ruined his best shirt now!” (The stuff went all over the drum kit and the drummer). He then proceeded to call the guy the ‘c word’. I managed to video this, and it’s up on YouTube. Just search something like ‘Hot Leg I’ve Met Jesus live Newcastle’ and it’ll come up.

Right, this is where it gets difficult, because try as I might I can neither remember nor find the set list. So instead, the next load of stuff will just be whatever I’m thinking about, probably in no particular order. Set-wise, all I can remember is that they played the album, plus other songs from the next album, apparently. See, I told you it was going to be hard!

They played a few songs that we knew all together first. Actually, I think it was the best part of Red Light Fever, almost all of it, before they started with new album stuff. It went something like Prima Donna, Whichever Way You Wanna Give It, Gay in the 80s, Trojan Guitar, Chickens, You Can’t Hurt Me Any More, ballady type songs including Kissing in the Wind, some other songs, Cocktails, and the encore, which was made entirely of new album stuff. I thought that was a shame – I mean, it was interesting to hear what might be coming from the band, but you couldn’t really get involved like you could with the others.

Justin dedicated a few of the songs to various people, too. One guy at the other side of the crowd yelled “I love you!” loud enough for pretty much everyone to hear and Justin said “I love you too – who are you?” To which the guy gave his name, and he repeated “I love you too, tell you what, this one’s for you,” and they played another new song.

There were two women right behind us who got a song dedicated in this way as well. They were stood on the stairs – one of the official women had moved them off earlier but they’d sneaked their way back on again. They were so annoying … clearly more Justin Hawkins’ groupies than Hot Leg fans, always shrieking and yelling annoying things. At one point Justin talked about the end of the ‘erection section’ (a little bit of the concert dedicated to ballads) and they were shouting “eROCKtion!” He said “What?” And they did it again, to which he replied, “Oh, erocktion¸ I see what you’ve done, you’ve taken the vowel and changed it …” I managed to get this on video, too, and because they were behind me Justin’s looking right in my direction, “You’re two big Leg fans over there, tell you what, this one’s for you!” The women whooped irritatingly as the band started up their song.

The final dedicated song was to a seven-year-old boy whose birthday it was. Justin got us all singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him, and said what he’d most like for his birthday was to see us all jumping up and down to the next song. We obliged happily. In my case it wasn’t easy, because whenever I jumped up I smacked my knee into the banister, but it was still fun. We could feel the floor moving beneath our feet.

One of the new songs had a bit of audience participation in it. The words? Woah … huh! Justin sang them to us, and we sang them back. Only it turned out we were supposed to sing with him, not after him. We only caught on after he explained it to us, and even then loads of people continued to do it wrong. On purpose, I think, after a while. It went on for absolutely ages. It was funny, though.

Costumeness next! During the main set, Justin took his jacket off, leaving him in the blue vest. It’s loads like one Amy has, actually. For the encore, he got changed into a white football strip, exposing most of his tattoos. The shorts were extremely short! He kept putting his leg up on the monitors or the barrier, to much stroking. I didn’t get to touch him, unfortunately. There were opportunities aplenty, but I was often inches away due to the stupid barrier people. He stripped his shirt off, too, revealing an arm tattoo continuing onto his chest, and one on his stomach that carried on below his shorts. I kind of wanted to see what it was, but I didn’t want to see what else was under there …

I took tons of pictures and quite a few videos. Our view enabled awesome pictures, especially when the band members came right up to us. Justin did this a couple of times on my videos, which was lucky. Even though I have some really incredible photos, they still don’t do justice to the position we had. Almost everything about it was amazing, better than any show I’d ever been to.

I think that’s everything about the show that I can remember right now. Which sucks, but I can’t do anything about that. All I can say is it was a brilliant concert. The only thing I could fault about the show itself was the fact that they played tons of new stuff. It’s not as good when you can’t get properly involved. Oh well. I thoroughly enjoyed myself anyway. The closeness, the fun-ness, the music … it was all fantastic. I think Justin actually talked to my sister and me when we made mosh hands at him. I love intimate gigs!

It’s always a bummer when the band go off for real after the encore and the lights come on. We had a shouty discussion over the ringing in our ears and the music – it seemed everyone else had loved it too, which was good. I know Steph really likes stuff like this, but you can hardly tell because she’s pretty quiet and doesn’t get hugely involved. It was nice to see she’d had a good time, as had Amy and Ellan.

And now to get four hundred people down one little staircase … always fun. We hung around at the back of the crowd for a bit, not overly keen on the prospect of being crushed. Then the people hanging around (including us) got yelled at to move, when we couldn’t, because the exit was basically a giant scrum. Eventually, though, we got through, and arrived back down at the t-shirt stall, where we decided to buy some more stuff. Ellan and Steph had both really liked The Crave, so they bought their album. I’d thought they were all right, but a bit soft for my taste, so I didn’t bother. I did buy Hot Leg’s I’ve Met Jesus single on vinyl, because it was signed and £2. Also, I love LPs and EPs. Steph, however, is in love with them. She bought the single and Red Light Fever on red vinyl.

Slowly, we moved along. The Crave were standing and signing their album. We tried to get Steph to go up to them but she wouldn’t, so I approached one of the dreadlock guys and said “Excuse me, my friends are losers and won’t come and see you themselves, will you please sign their albums?” Before I’d finished my sentence they went up – I don’t know if they were saving themselves, or me, from embarrassment. Probably me…

Steph and Ellan’s albums found their way around the band. Steph told me later that Ellan had said to her “You don’t look very excited,” and she’d replied “I’m inwardly excited,” and one of the guys had said “Cool.” She was really pleased.

One of the yellow official guys told Amy and me to get moving if we weren’t doing anything, so we told him we were waiting for our friends, and when they were finished, we went downstairs and outside. The last ones out! Dad and Charlotte were waiting for us at the other side of the road. We crossed over to them and launched into excited chatter about the concert. This continued all the way to the car – every single detail, all the highlights, everything. Charlotte said she’d seen a bloke with a drumstick come out, and she bet that we’d almost got it. Sure enough, we had been this close – I’d felt it against my hand, but another bloke behind me had caught it. Unlucky.

As soon as we hit the road I drank some more water, and realised just how tired I was. Talking became much more of an effort. Instead, I listened – Dad and Charlotte had eaten at an Italian restaurant and their service had been unusually fast. Later on down the road, Charlotte told us (in great detail) about the time when Jessie had done a two tone turd when she was looking after her. I think Ellan was mildly revolted – Steph was laughing her head off.

Just when I was getting warm and comfortable, we pulled off the main road and started our way back to Steph’s house. I gave everyone their tickets.

At Steph’s I had to get out to let her out. It was awful – I was so warm and tired that the cold air was a shock to my system. I couldn’t wait to get back in.

After we’d said goodbye to Steph it was on to Ellan’s house. We dropped her off, watched her into the house, then went to Charlotte’s. Dad took her inside while Amy and I waited in the car for a couple of minutes. I was dreading the cold air again.

Eventually, though, we had to face it. We pulled up home, I got all my stuff together and got out. It was freezing, my lips were dry and sore, my mouth was thirsty, my head was fuzzy, my ears were ringing and I was shattered. But these were all signs of a fantastic night.

I was so proud of my pictures that I put my memory card in the digital photo frame to have a look at for a bit; tired as I was, I didn’t want to let the day slip away. Not just yet. I had a drink, ate a biscuit, and sat up with Amy for a few minutes. We’d got in on the stroke of midnight so there was no more Friday Rock Show to listen to.

When I gave in to tiredness, we both went upstairs to bed, where my ears really started to ring. I laid my shirt out for the next morning, changed into my pyjamas, and got into bed. All I could hear was ringing. I don’t know how you spell the noise that makes.

Before I could actually go to sleep, though, I had to write in my diary:

‘Hot Leg were immense¸ I kind of hadn’t registered that on the ticket it said ‘Academy 2’ so I was expecting to see them at the main stage. We had better luck – Academy 2 is basically a club. I was this close to touching Justin Hawkins on several occasions! I would’ve been able to if it wasn’t for those complete losers on the barrier who barely moved throughout. Poos. It was a good show though, we managed to push our way to the second row which wasn’t bad at all. It was a pretty normal day, so I’ll continue with more Hot Leg-ness. We got Amy in no problem so I relaxed a bit then. Only complaints I have are 1. annoying crowd and 2. too much ‘next album’ stuff!’

Finally – sleep! I was very happy though.

I needed loads of sleep. I only got about eight hours, probably just under, where I’d been hoping for about ten because on the Saturday night I was going to the cinema to see Slumdog Millionaire, then sleeping at Beth’s, for her birthday party. Naturally I wore my Hot Leg shirt. I printed out some of my best pictures, put them in my album, and brought them with me. Steph, Ellan and I were in Hot Leg mode all night. It was awesome. And the legacy continued – I blew up my two favourite pictures of Justin in Boots on the Sunday, then printed off copies for all four of us. On the Tuesday, Ellan, Steph and I all wore our shirts to college.

Big things do come in small packages. Hot Leg’s show was more than proof.

Notes

- I don’t think I mentioned that Justin came in the crowd. Well, he did – and I discovered my camera had no space left on the memory card. I therefore ended up with two rubbish pictures on my phone.

- I rang Rich during I’ve Met Jesus. He was very jealous I got to go.

- As you might have guessed from the diary entry, the tickets did say Academy 2, so not noticing was my own fault.

- At Beth’s house, Steph told me that on the back of The Crave’s album, they thanked Bruce Dickinson.

Best Live Band

2009-02-18T21:11:00.003Z

UP THE FUCKING IRONS!

Just shows that we Maiden fans are an army when we put our minds to it. I bet 'fans' of the other bands presumed their favourite acts would win, and so didn't try to help them at all. Maiden well and truly derserved that award. I know most people (generally those who favour the crappy famous-for-five-minutes music scene) weren't exepcting it, but I know that we voted long and hard. I did, anyway! It was fantastic to see the boys get some recognition for once.

Shame Acca Dacca lost to Kings of Leon. TWICE. Oh well. KoL will be nowhere in another few years, where AC/DC will continue to rock hard.

BRIT AWARDS

2009-02-13T10:42:00.003Z

Well, I'm sure you all know that the mighty Maiden are up for 'Best Live Band'. Unfortunately voting has now closed in that category, but I voted for them. After all, who would rather go and see crap like Coldplay when you could get blown away by the air raid siren vocals of Mr Dickinson?

If you type in 'vote for the brits' to Google, Maiden are the first specified band that come up in the results. Doesn't that say something?

However, even though the Irons have been nominated, they are not featured on the Brits 09 album. And AC/DC are up for two awards ... are they on there, then? Oh, come on, surely? No.

Clearly the music world is not good enough for these legendary giants of classic rock.

Airbourne, Newcastle Carling Academy

2009-02-10T20:10:00.002Z

Airbourne

It’s Tuesday, 18th November (second draft: Monday, 2nd February). I’ve snatched a few precious minutes before work because my teacher is ill again and I didn’t technically have last lesson. It would probably be much more constructive for me to have stayed in college to do Media work, but oh well. This is important, in my opinion.

Yesterday was a strange day. I woke up at 6:20 to the sound of Airbourne. Nothing really unusual about that. I had the normal feeling of not wanting to get up so I listened to the whole album before I did.

Then I got up. Feeling tired and slightly nauseous – a sensation I recognised strongly from July 5th. But I felt better as I got ready and set off for college.

My first show on a schoolnight. It was weird. When I was thinking about it, I was pretty excited – but, most of the time I was doing ordinary school stuff, so I wasn’t.

I attempted vocab learning for French in tutorial. First lesson was Media. Steph and I couldn’t get into the editing room, so we went to B13 to catch up with our tasks instead, including watching the preliminary exercise video. Of course, I soon got bored and messed around on the Internet instead, eventually arriving at the Carling Academy website where Airbourne topped their list of featured shows.

Next came French, where I did a bit of cheating on my vocab but I always think that helps in the long run. I got out my diary, where I had ‘Airbourne – RUNNIN’ WILD AND FREE!’ written. I had been counting down for thirty days. I showed Laura, who said ‘I bet you’re excited right now then, aren’t you?’ Of course I was!

It was a very cold morning. I was wearing my big black boots, black skinny jeans, Jack Daniels shirt and black blazer jacket. So I wasn’t particularly warm. Luckily, we went into the corridor we usually stand in when it’s cold.

I was free after break, and so was Steph, so we both went to the resource centre as we had work to do. We sat at our usual balcony desk and I re-drafted my twelve mar sexual ethics essay whilst listening to Airbourne in my CD player. It’s quite a short album, though, and I finished it within the hour. I got to listen to Stone Gods for a bit as well before it was lunchtime, and we went to Becky’s.

It was quite an ordinary lunchtime as well. All I rally remember is that we started re-watching Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in order to laugh at the bad acting and squeaky voices. It was hilarious.

After Lunch, I had Philosophy and Ethics. With one minor difference: my teacher wasn’t there. Which was a shame, as I’d been wondering whether he’d be interested in what I was getting up to, but you can’t have everything. I instead spent the lesson doing work on the Four Working Principles of Situation Ethics in the resource centre. I also coloured in the A4 sheet I printed off in green and orange TicTac style. It looked rather funky.

Then came English, Eleanor and I arrived first, and in hope that our teacher would think we weren’t there, we sat in the dark for a while. However, the rest of the class soon joined us, and our teacher came to teach.

It was an extremely boring lesson. Sarah and Wannabe Ste were both absent, so I basically spent the hour writing part of my Electric Eel story in my paper folder. Kyle telling Kayleigh he was gay was far more interesting than language and power.

English was my last lesson, so I set off for work once I was done with it. Work was really strange as well. Because I had to leave an hour earlier, at five past five, I did all my main jobs really fast. Somehow too fast. This resulted in me having about fifteen minutes left – not enough time to really do the big jobs, but too much to be filled by the little ones. Rachael asked me where I was going. I told her the Carling Academy in Newcastle (after I accidentally told her City Hall...) and she told me she’d seen the Plain White T’s there. She’d been up on the balcony, but because the venue’s only quite small she felt really close to the band. The PWTs are hardly my cup of tea, but this still made me feel even more excited: wherever we were, we’d be near the stage.

So, at five past five, I set off home.

By the time I got there, I felt really sleepy and I had a stomach ache, but I just suspected pre-gig nerves, because I was hungry still. As soon as I got in, I ate my tea, which was mince and vegetables. I felt strange at that point. It was dark, I had just got back from work and I was tired, yet soon I’d be driving (well – being a passenger) to Newcastle to see a concert.

After I’d finished eating, I had to get ready, and quickly. I changed my Jack Daniels shirt to my Punky Fish one – the same shirt I’d worn to Twickenham. I brushed my teeth and gave my face a quick wash before putting on my black eyeliner and some Ralph Lauren Cool to help to cover up any potential sweaty stink. I’d decided to wear my AC/DC patch covered denim jacket, so I’d hidden a twenty pound note inside one of the little button-up pockets earlier to ensure I didn’t forget any money for a t-shirt. I also gathered up a whole lot of stuff for the car – Silver Spoons and Broken Bones, Runnin’ Wild, my portable CD player, my little speakers and Barry Trotter and the Unnecessary Sequel. Our car CD player wasn’t working, so our driving enjoyment depended entirely on this.

We set off at around quarter to six. I set the speakers off with Amy’s mp3 player playing some Airbourne, but as she’d imported the songs weirdly I had to find the next one myself once one had finished, so I gave up and put Runnin’ Wild in the CD palyer instead.

Disaster! The batteries died! We faced a quiet journey.

Dad told us he’d brought lots of sweets and bottles of water .Indeed, the back of the car was full of them. I had my own water bottle so I generally drank from that until I got sick of old water and wanted some fresh new cold stuff.

The first sweets we ate were those really sour fizzy cola things, and they tasted rank because my mouth was still minty from toothpaste so I didn’t eat any more sweets on the way there.

We stopped at a garage on the main road. We stopped at a similar one on the way home from Maiden, so they remind me of concerts now.

One thing I remember a lot about the journey came when we were approaching Newcastle. It was obviously dark, and we could see the lights of the city. Town. Whatever. I said how cool they looked and Dad said something like ‘this’ll all be part of the experience, you’ll remember this later’. I said I didn’t want to think about later. I wanted to see the show first. We also talked about his shows, when he was about my age. He said they always tended to be around ‘this time of year’ as well, when the nights were getting darker. I think darkness makes anything more exciting, except maybe sunbathing.

In Newcastle, the Academy was on the other side of the river, so we got to go over a bridge. I love doing that because you can see a lot from where you are. It looked especially pretty in the dark.

We parked up in our college car park near the Metro Radio Arena, the car park we used to use for Disney on Ice performances. It was really chilly, and I was starting to feel nervous, an irritating habit I have about stuff like this. These combined make my jaw ache (don’t ask me why, it’s weird). I warmed up when we got walking, though. It was about a ten minute walk to the Academy; we saw a few rockers getting out of a car near us, but no more until we were on the next street from the venue. One guy commented on my AC/DC jacket, making me laugh.

It was an absolute beast when we got to the venue. We just suddenly saw it, and it’s one of those that literally has a lit up white board above the door, with black stripes and the name of the band on it in red. AIRBOURNE. And the queue was immense – it stretched right around the building and it was full of rockers in various awesome t-shirts. It’s times like this when I don’t feel ‘different’… haha.

It was probably about ten or quarter past seven by that point, just after doors time, so Dad didn’t want to join the queue yet. We waited on the other side of the street for a bit, and when we did join, we ended up round the back of the building. It was a fast-moving queue, though. When we were nearing the doors Dad thought he saw someone he recognised from home. (It turned out later that he actually worked in the Tesco near Dad’s work that he often goes to during lunch).

Our tickets were checked, but the security guys didn’t rip off the rippy bits, they just let us in. The inside was quite posh and red, with posh and red lighting. We went in and the first thing I heard was 22 Acacia Avenue playing over the sound system – a sure sign, if I needed one, that it was going to be a good night. We went up a couple of flights of stairs and waited while Amy went to the loo. I saw a couple of Twickenham event shirts in the bar area.

You weren’t given a seat on the balcony like I’d thought. We could just sit anywhere. We sat to the left (right from the stage), three rows back (the nearest we could get to the front). Once we were seated Dad went to the loo as well. It was ages – we were getting quite worried, but he returned after a while. As always, he’d got talking to someone, this time apparently a few young dudes about Airbourne. He said he’d found the t-shirt stall, too, so he gave Amy and I instructions on how to get there. We had to take our tickets pretty much everywhere we went so we could get back through the doors onto the balcony.

We couldn’t find the shirts anywhere, though. We searched for a while but eventually gave up and returned to Dad, asking him exactly where we were meant to be going. He obviously couldn’t show us or we’d lose our seats, so Dad took Amy and I waited for them.

Whilst they were gone, all the lights went down. A big ‘wooooaaaarrrr’-y noise filled the room. I was shitting myself – I hadn’t been ready, I’d completely forgotten that the first support band were due on, and I was still sat on my own.

Sound and Fury came on, relaxing me a bit once I knew what was going on.

As this was my first indoor gig, the power of the sound blew me away. It was good to get used to, though, considering there’d be two more bands.

Dad and Amy came back during the show. We watched it together for a bit, but I didn’t really like Sound and Fury much. It was hard to get into them because I didn’t know their songs, but it was mainly because the singer annoyed me, posing about at the front of the stage. One of the guitarists reminded me of Slash – he had a similar Les Paul and a lot of dark, curly hair.

I soon got bored, though, so Amy and I went to get my t-shirt. We had to go downstairs and get through some more doors. The guy who checked our tickets told us to go upstairs, thinking we were looking for our seats, but another one noticed and told him it was OK to let us in. I bought the Airbourne tour shirt.

We watched the rest of Sound and Fury. Dad and Amy both really enjoyed them, unlike me, and they went to get Amy’s shirt. Once they came back, none of us would move again until after the show.

Next came Stone Gods! I loved how their bass drum had the band name on it, I always think that’s so cool. There was a bit of intro music before they actually came on, then they opened with Burn the Witch, the first song on their album. It was getting me all excited – owning the album meant I knew their songs, and could get into them easily. The next song they played was You Brought a Knife to a Gun Fight, one of my favourites.

I’m annoyed with myself, though. I can’t remember all of the songs Stone Gods played, or the order in which they played them, or what happened when. I just remember a load of random bits and pieces, which I will detail now.

I only remember five other songs for certain: Start of Something, I’m With the Band, Defend or Die, Knight of the Living Dead and, of course, Don’t Drink the Water. If I’d got the album more than five days before the show I’d probably have known and remembered the set better.

However, I will work with what I have.

One of my best friends has a massive thing for Dan Hawkins, so I made sure I had a few pictures and videos of him especially for her. Personally I think he’s ugly, but a great guitarist who played well with his crowd and not at them. I often saw the standing people gathering to mosh around him when he got up on the monitors.

I thought the singer/guitarist, Richie Edwards, was really cool. He was a good frontman who worked us, the crowd, like he was headlining and not just support. I’m sure at one point he acknowledged me and my sister – everyone on the balcony apart from us was being pretty boring and quiet.

Richie asked us who owned the album. We yelled and waved. Apparently though, the album was being sold at the venue for a credit crunch beating price of seven pounds, and not enough of us had it already.

It was fun swearing, both verbally and with our fingers, during You Brought a Knife to a Gun Fight. But I think the song I enjoyed the most was actually Don’t Drink the Water. There was a little tutorial on how to sing along – there’s a few ‘oi’s at the end of lines that we had to yell. And on the funky dancey bit, Richie got the whole floor dancing. It looked absolutely mint.

They didn’t play the whole album, though, so it was soon over. It had been an amazing set, almost as though they were joint headliners with Airbourne because everyone had been really involved. My voice was almost completely gone, and my throat was sore, worrying me a bit. I wanted some voice left for Airbourne: however, I’m weird, so I also wanted to lose my voice for the next day. It gradually came back, though. wanted a drink but none of us had one and I couldn’t be bothered to move.

There were a few songs played over the sound system whilst the stage was being set for the headliners. The played Wasted Years – me and Amy were singing and headbanging like we were actually watching Iron Maiden play it live. It almost made up for the fact that I didn’t know the song as well at Twickenham.

After that, they played Overkill by Motörhead. It was amazing. The bass was so immensely loud that it sounded like thunder. Or like the venue was falling down. Luckily it wasn’t, but the illusion was pretty cool.

I can’t remember any more of the songs that played, only the three I mentioned. All I know is that after Overkill there weren’t many songs left.

The stage was all set like the video for Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast. Right before they were due to come on, we could see them from the angle we were at, just behind the amps. We watched them getting ready excitedly.

Then the lights went down.

Airbourne had a bit of intro music like Stone Gods. It was weird, because it sounded like them, but it was pre-recorded. Because I was ready, I managed to get a (crappy) video of the start on my phone. It’s on YouTube!

The lights came on to reveal the four of them, and we went mental. As on the album, they started with Stand Up For Rock ‘N’ Roll, a song made to open with. Just the intro gets you so worked up you want to run around like a crazy fool. Building up to when the song gets going, all I wanted to do was jump to my feet: but there was a yellow-vested security guard watching over us, and I knew that if we tried any such thing we’d be yelled at. So instead of standing up for rock ‘n’ roll, I stretched my arms up as far as I could and screamed along.

I rang my friend Rich during this song, as I’d promised by text earlier. He texted me saying it sounded good, and to enjoy the rest of the concert.

After the first song, we gave the guys an immense cheer. The volume was through the roof, even louder than the two supports. There was a ringing in my ears even during the noise, it was just that loud.

I know Joel yelled stuff at us at this point. But he often yelled stuff at us, he was a very friendly man. So I’m not sure exactly what he yelled when. I do know that he drank a lot, though – and chucked a lot of booze out as well.

The next song they played was Hellfire. Strange, as it’s the last one on the album, but fine in the show. I think it was after this that Joel cracked open his first can and said ‘Cheers, Newcastle!’ Every time he addressed us he literally screamed. It was so funny. We couldn’t understand him half the time.

Fat City came next. This was fun – I love how it’s called that because it makes me think of a city full of fat people.

After that was their third single from the album, Diamond in the Rough. Proper solid rock ‘n’ roll, good for shouting the extremely singable chorus. My voice was back especially for the set, and now I was glad.

The tempo slowed, but the solid rock remained for What’s Eatin’ you, a song I knew but not as well as the others. There’s always a song like that – one that, for some reason, just doesn’t stick in my head, no matter how much I listen to it.

Girls in Black was the song I’d dressed for, and it came next. I’m pretty sure Joel was shirtless by this point, but he probably had been for a while. Amy and me were almost dancing along to this, two girls in black. Of course, we couldn’t stand. All the fist pumping was making my arms ache, but oh well. You only get out what you put in.

They really slowed down Cheap Wine and Cheaper Women. It sounded strange – good, though. Another fantastic chorus to yell to. I particularly loved the line ‘she loved me tender, and she f*cked me sweet’, one that Joel changed, and sang, with relish. There was also the classic bit towards the end: ‘Women come and go…’ which he sort of spoke matter-of-factly. It was funny, it sounded like he was speaking from experience. Which, being a rock star, he probably was.

I don’t have a particular favourite Airbourne song, but if I did, it would have to be Heartbreaker. I think there’s something about the vocals – they sound a bit sad, but awesome at the same time. I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is about this song, though. Maybe it’s to do with the melody itself, it really gets to me.

Possibly their most famous song drew a massive roar from the crowd. The song the stage was set up for. Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast. I was thinking about the video during the live performance. I tend to get psyched knowing the band from the video and the band in front of me are exactly the same. They really recreated the video, too, Roadsy and Streety doing the dual-headswirling thing. Mind you, all three of them did that a lot. Joel even got up on one of the big blocky things … erm, yeah, he did that a few times and all. I remember during the first bit of the first chorus, at the line ‘I’ll sit and spin for a little while’, he twirled his finger. I don’t know why that’s important. It’s just something I remember. I rang my friend Beth during this song, too – she bought me the album for my birthday.

After that song, though, came the end of the show. We cheered for a bit, Joel said thank you, and they went off. Luckily, as us Airbourne fans are not stupid, we knew they still had to play two more songs, so we didn’t give up, chanting and screaming for more.

And they returned! One by one.

First Ryan, on the drums, tapping out the rhythm for Runnin’ Wild. Then Streety, slamming on the bass. This went on for a while, until the guitars joined in, eventually becoming the intro and receiving a wild reaction from us. If Airbourne have ever recorded ‘genuine fist-pumping, sweat-soaked rock ‘n’ roll’, this is it. Full of energy.

But that just left one song. Another energetic number, Blackjack, maybe to tire us out. It’s a fun song, though. And even though I was pretty much worn out in the arm area, I didn’t put them down.

And that really was the end. They went off, and the house lights came on, and we knew they wouldn’t be coming back again. I wasn’t too sad, though. It had been a hell of a night.

I know that was basically just a detailed setlist, making the show sound boring. It was anything but that. I know it’s now become a cliché to mention this band when talking about Airbourne, but it reminded me of an early AC/DC show. Joel came into the crowd a couple of times, like Angus used to. Only Joel pulled a pint and soloed at the same time as well. He was absolutely crazy! It’s the only word for it.

There was quite a lot of booze in the show, actually. Joel drank a lot, sent a lot spinning out into the crowd, and poured a lot on his head. I liked it when he did this – he then swirled his head around so his hair flew all over the place and sprayed beer everywhere. It looked really cool.

Near the end of the show, Joel talked about real rock ‘n’ roll, and how we all believed in it. He yelled for quite a while – I didn’t catch half of it, but I got the gist, and that was enough.

I rang home during the show as well. As no one was in, the messages Amy and I left are still on the phone. There’s Diamond in the Rough, Cheap Wine and Cheaper Women and Heartbreaker (twice – one message entirely solo and the other the chorus).

And that’s all I can think about now, so I’ll leave the show there. It was brilliant.

We walked back to the car. Newcastle was full of young adults out drinking, but waves of rockers soon dispersed and evened out the chavs. The air outside was warmer than we’d expected of a late November night (Dad and Amy had had a mini-argument about jackets earlier).

I sent this message to a few of my friends:

Walking back to the car, airbourne rocked my socks and bed! I’m of course joking, but that Joel is pretty awesome! Going to a few people xxx Laura was the only one who replied, but between then and now I accidentally deleted her message.

I can’t remember much about the journey home. My ears were ringing but my throat wasn’t at all sore or dry. Amy fell asleep in the car so I just talked to Dad.

So we got home. I had a drink, and went to bed. I was sort of glad we didn’t have a(nother) hellishly long, depressing journey home, but the car had been nice and warm. Plus, although I didn’t know it then, that was the last journey I ever made in our Vauxhall Vectra (Dad bought a Land Rover Discovery the next day).

I wrote in my two diaries:

AIRBOURNE! What a strange day. I got up, went to college and went to work as usual, but then I came home from work early and went to Newcastle to see Airbourne at Carling Academy – awesome venue and the band were brilliant, really enjoyed myself. Stone Gods good too.

And:

AIRYBOURNE … put on a genuinely awesome rock ‘n’ roll show, shame we couldn’t stand but I’m pretty sure Joel saw us anyway.

This last entry also contained a ‘0’. 0 days until Airbourne.

And that’s it. I wore my shirt the next day, along with a headache and sore eyes. It was totally worth it. Go and see Airbourne live if you love proper rock!

NOTES

*When Joel pulled the pint, we stood up and were allowed to for a while ... until the yellow man eventually gave up and sat us down.

*We managed to give them a standing ovation at the end, though

* I started this on Thursday, 18th November. It is now Sunday, 1st February (Tuesday, 10th second draft). The other one only took just over a week because I had a lot of free time in Seahouses.

*Therefore, only one draft of this took about 66 days compared to about 10 for three drafts of Maiden...

*Finally my friend Laurence, who helped me with my last gig account, attended this same show but at London Astoria. Because it was Airbourne's last UK show, Dan Hawkins came on at the end and played guitar with them, leaving Joel to just sing. They played Whole Lotta Rosie. I am jealous.

AC/DC

2008-10-17T19:28:00.003+01:00

Who else has got their 'Black Ice' tour tickets?

I HAVE!

Unfortunately, the plural of 'tickets' here means 'two', the limit per person. However, I require three - my Dad, my sister, and myself.

How crappy that the limit was set so low. I know it's to try to prevent people buying them, jacking up the price and selling them on eBay, etc, but it's hardly worked ... get on their yourself if you don't believe me.

I was in college when they went on sale at ten this morning, desperately waiting to hear from either my Dad or my cousin, both of who were on the phone trying to book tickets for the Manchester MEN show. It was my cousin who was successful - Dad tried for three hours and couldn't get through to the ticket lines; he was also on the net and everything he looked at was sold out.

Still, two tickets are better than none, right? But it's so unfair. My Dad hasn't seen them since 1980 - my sister and I haven't seen them before at all. And the band mean so much to me in loads of ways - not only are they my favourite band, they also got me into both rock and music in general in a big way. I've been waiting for this for years now. I almost feel like I've followed them since they started, and I know more about them than quite a few older people I know who actually have.

So why the hell the ridiculous limit? Raise it by one ticket and I'd have been fine. But no. Put my AC/DC-obsessed family in this position, hoping against hope something will come along. Maybe we'll have to rely on, on the night itself ... touters. Eurgh.

Thank you to my wonderful cousin, and my Dad who gave up three solid hours and a whole lot of the phone bill.

Wizard Rock

2008-08-18T12:48:00.004+01:00

Oh My God

I know that's an overrated expression to use on the Internet, making you sound like some angsty ZOMG!!!11eleven!!-style teenager, but when I say the three words, I mean them.

Is there a more nerdy, pathetic genre out there?

I've been watching random videos on YouTube to try to find out more about the world of Wizard Rock, or 'Wrock' as it is affectionately known by its fans. And I have one question. Which is also indeed one word.

WHY?

Why do they have to take over everything I love? Sure, I've read all of the books, I got the last three the day they came out and finished them in ridiculously short amounts of time (but I didn't go at midnight, the saddest thing you can possibly do). However, I also got 'Chemical Wedding' before it was published. And I will not tell you how extreme my methods were when I got 'The Missionary Position'. Rock and roll is unconventional, alternative, a different way of life for us awesome people who say 'NO!' to the normal. Now it's in the process of being taken over by geeks. What will they do next? They already have seven epic books, five films so far, two accompaniment books and another on the way, about a million unofficial ones, about half the net devoted to fandom, fanfiction, fanart, etc ... what more do they want?

It would be OK if the new bands were talented. They, sadly, are not. Nearly every band are terrible. I'm not just saying that because I don't like the idea, I'm saying it as a musician and a rock fan. The singers can't sing, and the musicians often have no previous experience, they just feel they can play because they are spreading the Harry Potter word. Hasn't it been spread enough already? The books are the most famous ones in the world, for crying out loud!

OK - there is the point that Led Zeppelin drew inspiration from Lord Of The Rings. Yes indeed they did. However, their name is not 'Frodo and the Hobbits'. And they did not write every song - sorry, did I say write? I meant 'rip every song off from' - the books.

'Wrock' is unimaginative, uncreative, and just plain wrong. Come on, nerds - read Harry Potter and leave rock music alone. You know nothing about it.

Iron Maiden play Twickenham Stadium

2008-07-17T15:11:00.002+01:00

IRON MAIDEN

London Twickenham Stadium
Saturday 5th July 2008

Saturday, 5th July, in the competition for best day of my life, is definitely in the top ten. Five. Three. Hell, maybe even one.

The only thing is, the letdown afterwards means I am suffering from terrible post-Maiden depression. I want it to be like the film ‘Groundhog Day’ so I wake up every morning to my Dad coming into my room at five o’ clock.

That was the only time I ever felt properly nervous that day. I woke up, wanting to go back to sleep, then realised exactly why I was awake so early. And then, for about five minutes, I sort of wished I wasn’t going. I felt tired and quite nauseous. By the time I got up, washed and dressed, though, I felt quite a bit better.

My lovely ‘Number Of The Beast’ t-shirt hadn’t arrived, which was a shame. Instead, I wore my black Punky Fish t-shirt with all the safety pins, sticking my Iron Maiden badge in with them. I also wore my new (very short) denim shorts, my boxing boots, purple stripy Fat Face socks, a necklace I recently found that could be hematite or plastic, my pink glow in the dark bracelets, my small leather studded wristband, my big leather studded wristband, padded by my pink sweatband because my arms are so skinny. I wore Anna Sui ‘Dolly Girl Bonjour L’Amour!’ perfume, New York Colour ‘Skintight Denim’ nail varnish and black eyeliner. It was warm most of the time but when it wasn’t I wore my leather jacket.

It may also interest you to know that I wore matching underwear. I think that says something about me and my priorities – I wear posh, matching black and red underwear to an Iron Maiden concert, yet not to my prom. Hm.

I gave Splodge, who was awake, a load of grass and a carrot, and Dad and I set off to Middlesbrough at about quarter to six. We had the second disc of ‘A Real Live Dead One’ on in the car, because Dad had been doing some cramming of the last three tracks (‘Heaven Can Wait’, ‘The Clairvoyant’ and ‘Fear Of The Dark’). I discovered I’d forgotten a ring I was planning on wearing – purple and flashing.

It was nice to get to Middlesbrough in just twenty two minutes (probably the third most appropriate number of minutes the journey could have taken, after two and six hundred and sixty six). We parked in a car park quite near to our usual one, because it looked a bit safer, and we’d be leaving the car there for about a day. Pretty much twenty four hours, in fact.

We walked to the bus station (right opposite a closed Kindamagic, which was a shame, as I quite fancied buying those leather studded fingerless gloves like Bruce has in the video for ‘Run To The Hills’.)

The departure lounge was upstairs. We knew we’d come to the right place when we saw several men in Iron Maiden and other band shirts sitting around. There were a few young metalheads, and some older guys who’d probably grown up with the band. I was the only girl, until the last two people arrived – one a young woman in a Mighty Boosh t-shirt with red hair.

The coach pulled up outside shortly after. A couple of people got off and waited for a bit outside, smoking. A woman opened the door and came in to say something like ‘are you getting on, then?’

Yes, indeed. In about a minute’s time we were. Dad and I sat near the back behind one of the younger dudes. He had his lip pierced about three times, a fluffy beard and moustache and really long dark brown hair that was frizzy and greasy at the same time. It was so nice I wanted to brush it.

When we set off, the driver introduced himself, and the woman as his wife. He asked who hadn’t seen Iron Maiden before and I think three people put their hands up – me, Dad and the other woman. The driver then told us a little story about how he’d dragged someone (I think it was a daughter but I wouldn’t bet on it) to see them, and they’d grudgingly admitted afterwards that it was the best concert they’d ever been to. That made me feel better about my situation – not that I felt bad. In fact, it was actually only starting to feel real now that I was on my way with a ton of Maiden fans.

There had been three albums in the window of the coach – ‘Live After Death’, ‘Best Of The Beast’ and ‘Dance Of Death’. The driver said that by the time we got back, we’d be sick of the sight and sound of Iron Maiden. Fat chance. I don’t think there’s such thing.

We started with ‘Live After Death’. Awesome choice, as the tour, ‘Somewhere Back In Time’, was based around that album among others. It had the same opener – Churchill’s speech followed by ‘Aces High’ – that was on the setlist.

I found the ring I thought I’d left. It was in a pocket inside my backpack of sweets, my handbag and other bits and pieces. I remembered that the night before, I’d packed it, knowing I’d probably forget it. I put it on straight away.

There was another stop at Leeds, which filled the coach. I read a few chapters of Slash’s autobiography, but I was getting more interested in the view out of the window, and the fact that I was in the back of a coach on a motorway and not feeling sick.

I can’t remember anything interesting that happened before the service station. The full coach now consisted of mostly men, but a few more women, too – still very much in the minority, though, and I was still the youngest of anyone.

By the time we arrived at the stop in Leicester, we’d finished ‘Live After Death’, the second disc of ‘A Real Live Dead One’ and quite a bit of ‘Best Of The Beast’. There was a big truck when we pulled up with the name ‘John Dickinson’ on the front and a tank on the back. Some of the guys at the back of the coach were saying it was an Iron Maiden truck. At the side of another one was a guy in a Maiden shirt.

It was so funny going into the service station. It was raining, so I held my jacket over my head, only adding to the amusement of a bunch of ordinary, boring businessy people confronted by a big group of metallers. We got stared at a lot and I really felt the part with my hair looking a lot like early 80s Bruce.

Dad bought me the paper and he had a cup of coffee in the café. The service station went across both sides of the motorway, so we crossed to the other side but it came straight out into WH Smith and it looked kind of like we’d stolen the paper.

I got a couple of texts then. Amy (my sister) said; ‘Hiya! How are you and where ru? Ru wetting yourself? Hehe yell hi 2 Nicko! And dad! Luv Mynti! xxx’, and Charlton (my friend) said; ‘Hi sarah how are you doing? Are you having a good time at iron maidon? Hope you having a awsome time and when you see bruce tell him that i am a assasin and that he will be beaten by the charles! :) bye for now’. (He texted me again later confirming that Bruce would be killed by spoon. All spelling mistakes in both messages are deliberate).

Back on the coach, the CDs were switched for DVDs with a mixture of concert footage and extra stuff. I read the paper – yesterday, the Friday, the show had been under ‘Hot Gigs’, but there was no mention. Losers.

The DVDs were great. I even saw the infamous ‘you can’t play heavy metal with synthesisers’ clip. And watching the live stuff ruled. I kept thinking ‘I’ll be watching this for real tonight’.

I ate a sausage sandwich and drank some water, but I only did it because my stomach was hungry. The anticipation was killing my will to eat, really. I was even avoiding the jelly beans, rainbow belts, teeth and lips and two packets of midget gems we’d bought.

The guy in front, who had been joined by a friend, had a really high, funny singing voice. I liked listening to him and his friends messing about. When one of the women from the front came to use the toilet, the recently moved friend shouted ‘are you going for a sh*t? Everybody, she’s going for a sh*t!’ The whole group even invited a lot of the coach to join in their card game, which made me laugh, despite no one actually joining in.

I remember when we were getting nearer, we watched a Monsters of Rock performance – the one where Bruce is wearing three quarter lengths, a string vest and a leather jacket – and I pointed out Nicko to Dad. Bruce did a ‘scream for me’ and one of the guys at the back said ‘we will be later, son!’

They also enjoyed singing along really loudly to ‘The Trooper’ and having a conversation about how watching the DVDs was actually the gig we’d paid to see, only we didn’t know it yet.

It started to get busier the nearer we got, and the DVDs ran out and changed back to an album – I think it was ‘Dance Of Death’, the title track of which I’d only heard twice before. I think it’s so funny. I listened to the words and the part where Bruce said he danced and pranced and sang made me giggle.

London was so different to any places I’m used to. We could see the top of Wembley Stadium for a bit, but it soon vanished behind buildings. We came out of London and into Twickenham, where a yellow sign informed us that there was a risk of congestion on Saturday, 5th July. I wonder why …?

Planes were flying over very frequently. As they were either talking off or landing they were pretty low – we could see all the detail on them. Most of them were BA, but one of the back guys said something like ‘it’s Bruce!’ Someone else had no idea what they were talking about, and so an explanation of ‘Bruce Air’ began. It kind of amazed me that someone on their way to see Iron Maiden didn’t know how they relate to planes.

The stadium approached as we started to see the odd Maiden shirt-clad fan down a road of houses. When we started to see the top, someone said ‘oooh, that place looks good, let’s go there!’

Needless to say, we went there.

The majority of people milling around now were in Maiden shirts. And once we got round the corner, the stadium appeared in full along with crowds of fans and a couple of t-shirt stalls. It was the first time I’d seen so many rockers in one place. Obviously there’d be a lot more inside the stadium by quarter past eight.

The coach dropped us off outside North car park, having been told it couldn’t park inside it due to not having pre-booked. It was half one – six hours and three quarters until Maiden were due on. I crammed my phone, my purse and as many sweets as I could into my pockets, and we set off. Dad asked a parking dude where there was to eat, and we got told there were quite a few places including pubs, Tesco’s café and a Wetherspoons. Ah, well – we had a lot of time to kill.

We set off into Twickenham. I think I was a bit scared then – being from a medium sized, pretty rural town means I’m not used to walking around somewhere like Twickenham. Dad said, when we crossed the first road, ‘keep close to me. We’re not at home any more’.

It was when I was waiting to use the pedestrian crossing that I saw my first – and only – ‘Bruce Air’ t-shirts. Two of them crossed at the same time, from the other side of the road. Another pair of interesting ones I saw quite early on in the day had the classic ‘No! We are not an English rock band! We are albatross salesmen from Montana!’

The parking dude’s mention of Wetherspoons had appealed to Dad, because he knew it well and it had really good value food. We tried to find it, but ended up at a pub (The Barmy Arms, I think?) by the river. We’d passed tons and tons of Maiden fans on the way, including a carful of ‘Wayne’s World’ parodying teenagers headbanging to ‘The Trooper’. The pub was no different, full to the brim of people in their masses obviously having a pre-concert drink. We did the same, looking out at the river. Some canoes went by. Finishing the last few drops at the barbecue, ‘Kashmir’ came on the sound system, making me very happy indeed.

It was so busy we decided to continue our quest for Wetherspoons. We’d already asked one woman, and Dad asked a guy whilst I browsed through a free magazine to see if it mentioned the gig. Being a month out of date, it did not. And being a friendly man, Dad got talking to the other man, who was also friendly. He’d guessed where we were going from my wristband (it was so hot that by this time my jacket was around my waist. Not easy with leather). We got talking about my exams, my birthday, and The Rolling Stones. He’d seen them at Twickenham and his one complaint was that the bass had got to his ribs a lot: a problem solved, he said, by earplugs, as his friend had advised. Eventually, we left with a road name.

This road contained no Wetherspoons that we could find.

(Note: this part of the Wetherspoons hunt could have happened before the drink, but I’m not entirely sure. My memory’s clear for most of the day, just not when it comes to the order in which things happened.)

We ended up with lunch at a café called ‘Le Bon Café’. There’d been a lot more wandering around that it looks like written down, and it was hardly lunchtime any more, so we were desperate to eat or we’d be starving later, and stadium prices are ridiculous. The café was small and sweet, pretty quiet and the one place I’d been in with a serious lack of Iron Maiden fans. Until we found seats around the corner, and there were two at a table there.

Dad ordered an all day breakfast and either tea or coffee, but I just had a cheese and ham Panini.

This is very important. I must say that that Panini was the best Panini I’ve ever had in my entire life. I’m not joking. It was beautiful. I couldn’t eat it all – a mixture of my killed appetite and being generally bad at eating large quantities of sandwich-like foods due to becoming bored wit the samey taste – but I assure you, it was beautiful. Le Bon Café. Remember that name next time you’re in Twickenham.

Why is it that when you buy clothes, they fit you until you go out in them in public? My shorts were slightly too wide, not helped by the leather jacket with full pockets tied around my waist. I should apologise to the residents of Twickenham for showing my knickers a lot.

As far as I can remember, we went to get my t-shirt next. On the way down there, we walked with a crowd and someone was playing ‘Run To The Hills’ on their phone. It was one of the weirdest but best feelings, someone playing a song on their phone that was hardly mainstream or currently in the top ten, but you and everyone else around you, even the strangers, loved it.

We also heard a conversation between a young boy and his parents about a t-shirt he liked depicting Eddie ripping the heart out of the TARDIS. I’d seen people wearing that one and liked it, too, but I never saw it on sale.

Nearer the stadium, other people besides t-shirt sellers had spotted business opportunities. Dad had had to explain to me on arrival that they were trying to make money, not get into the concert. But why the hell would they want money for a ticket when they could just go into the stadium and watch the funking band.

Losers.

There were also the ones handing out leaflets. I’d kept a Duellist business card, and a rock club type one was forced into my hand by a man who gave me the impression that he was bored with his job. Quite a young, posh voice behind me said ‘cool, free stuff!’

There was a t-shirt stall right outside the stadium, which you had to be inside to get to, so we went to the exact same one that was over the road. I was surprised at the variety – I’d expected to see one tour t-shirt as opposed to about three, amongst other non-toury ones. Dad had promised to buy me one when my ‘Number Of The Beast’ shirt didn’t arrive. I chose the tour one with the ‘Somewhere Back In Time’ art on the front, and the ‘Live After Death’ cover on the back between ‘Somewhere Back In Time World Tour 08’ and all of the countries on the tour. It was either that or the event shirt, that had a picture of a person covered in blood and bandages with the words ‘I tried to tackle Eddie at Twickenham’ on it. This stall had sold out of programs. I hate paying so much for stuff (£20 for my shirt, £10 for a program) but I wanted these so badly. After all, I needed as much memorabilia from my first concert as possible.

As it was warm, and I wasn’t about to change shirts right outside Twickenham stadium, my shirt became a scarf.

According to our tickets, we had to enter through Gate B. We found this gate at the other side of the stadium, then found our pick-up point from there. It was straightforward enough. I really wanted to go into the stadium to see what it was like, but there was no re-admission allowed and it was still a while until Maiden. We’d be bored.

Dad then suggested we have another drink. We asked another official looking guy in a fluorescent vest where the nearest pub was. The ones he mentioned were ones in town we already knew about, we were just coming at them from a different direction. We said thank you and he told us to enjoy ourselves. He laughed when Dad returned this, saying he had four more hours of standing monitoring parking. I think that’s what he was doing.

This different direction involved a footbridge, from which I got a good picture of the top of the stadium. We also passed a rugby game – Harlequins vs. St Helen’s. I nearly wondered why they weren’t at Twickenham. (This is a joke. I know they wouldn’t be anyway, it’s the wrong sort of rugby.)

Tried one pub but it was stuffed to bursting point with Maiden fans. We went to one over the road instead, which was less busy. I got a bottle of water, because I was really thirsty and it was from the fridge. I’d bring it into the stadium. Dad had a pint. There were a couple of men next to us talking about Iron Maiden and t-shirts. It was kind of dark and squashed near the bar, and I couldn’t wait to get out because we had nothing left to do except go to the stadium. But Dad’s pint seemed to be taking him forever.

When we did finally set off, we passed a guy on a bike singing ‘Highway To Hell’. Dad joined in. Loudly.

I got my third and final three leaflet (‘What is cherry hardcore?’) and ushered across several roads as it was getting very busy. I think that was a first – having my pedestrian crossings controlled by traffic wardens.

We sat outside for a while as it was still nice and sunny. We could hear music and deduced, from the voice, that Within Temptation were on. We’d missed Lauren Harris – not that I was bothered.

It was about quarter to six when we went in. Our seats were on the lower tier – block L7, row 38, seats 313 and 314. They were a lot higher up than we’d expected. Kind of annoying, as we’d upgraded from standing and it looked more fun on the pitch.

Anyway, the stadium from the inside was impressive. It wasn’t really full, but there were still a hell of a lot of people. When we’d passed an entrance on arrival, the pitch had still be grass – now it was board. Three seating tiers all round, the third one really high up. A floor half-full of metallers and it was only the second support band.

Overall – the scale of the whole thing was HUGE.

Within Temptation impressed me. I’m not really a fan of theirs, but because they’re not really my thing as opposed to I think they’re no good. The singer has a nice voice that she can pull off live as well, and she was good at working what crowd had arrived and were really into them.

When they’d finished, Dad had the idea of trying to get onto the pitch. The basis for his idea was ‘once you’re in, you’re in’, so we made our way down and out to find pitch access.

I got my program from a stall on the way out. Right now, I still owe my Dad the £10. (That was the first draft. I don’t any more).

The guy on duty at the side of the pitch was busy. I remember waiting around for a bit while ‘Ace Of Spades’ was on the sound system. And, after that, ‘Runnin’ Wild’. I love both of those songs.

Alas, we were not allowed on the pitch. And we were also not allowed wristbands, the ultimate concert souvenir. I was devastated, but it was worth a try, and the guy was really nice about it.

We went back to our tier, not yet ready to go to our seats because they were pretty restricting. We stood at the bottom at the front, with only a small wall separating us from the pitch.

Pretty soon, we heard the buzz of a monitor, and Avenged Sevenfold were on, accompanied by a huge cheer. I’m not a fan of them either, but this time I genuinely wasn’t impressed. Their singer was too shouty – it was quite funny, me and Dad both jumped when he started. There were quite a few fans, though – one in the stand behind us going insane to every song, headbanging in an Avenged Sevenfold t-shirt and holding up their phone constantly. This was also funny because they were surrounded by seated, pretty much motionless people. Despite all this, I do quite like ‘Beast And The Harlot’.

At the end of the (shortened) set, the singer yelled ‘Iron Maiden are on next!’ and it started to sink in – I was going to see Iron Maiden!

We decided to chance it at the front for a bit longer, until an attendant told us we had to go back to our seats. So we’d be watching Maiden from further away than we’d watched Avenged Sevenfold. Hardly fair – ah well, the view wasn’t bad.

I’d expected to be dead nervous by this point. I always get nervous about stupid things, but then I was just plain excited. A few more songs on the sound system then the headliners would be playing to God knows how many thousands of people.

Stuff was happening on-stage. The monitors and things were replaced with yellow ones, and different lighting effects were tested.

The empty seat next to my Dad was filled by a man who was also a Maiden virgin. Of course, Dad had to explain that I was the massive fan, and he was only there because it was a long way for me to come alone. He was however, looking forward to it then.

‘Breaking The Law’ came on. I usually hate that song but I was so happy that I sang along. To the chorus, anyway. It’s the only part I know. Even so, it was fun.

A big cheer erupted and I realised there’d been a sort of buzzing – it sounded musicish. Everyone was on their feet chanting: ‘Maiden! Maiden! Maiden!’

Of course, we’d know when Maiden would be coming on. We had to wait for ‘Doctor Doctor’. The atmosphere was electric – and then ‘Doctor Doctor’ came on. And played. And ended.

The first thing I heard was the sound of an engine as the lights went down, although it was too bright still for real darkness. My stuff – program, water bottle and shirt – was safe on the floor, and I made sure my jacket was the same on my seat. I wasn’t particularly warm yet, but it wouldn’t be long.

The big screens either side of the stage came on and showed a video montage to ‘Transylvania’. The video was all about Ed Force One, with footage of the band, the crew, and the world’s most rocking pilot. It was interesting – but all I could think of was, over and over again,; ‘they’re coming on in a bit!’

When the video was over, it went as dark as it’s possible to go at quarter past eight in an open air stadium in July. Another engine noise – this time, for real, that Rolls-Royce engine that begins Churchill’s speech.

We didn’t need to be told to scream.

The speech went on to the big-screen video accompaniment, and it had never sounded so inspiring … yet so long …

“We shall never surrender!”

The riff started. More screaming … nobody was on-stage but Nicko, who can’t exactly rush on with his drum kit whenever he feels like it. This didn’t last long though – a smash of the drums, a load of fireworks, and a change in tempo, and the guys ran on. Steve, Dave, Adrian, Janick, then Bruce, in his flappy trousers, khaki shirt and – argh! – that beanie hat! He had a rugby ball (though rumour has it it was an inflated condom) that I think he threw out. He ran up to one of the monitors, leapt off it with what was almost the splits mid-air, and burst into ‘Aces High’.

Before I saw this song live, I’d always thought of it as the perfect opener. Once I’d seen it live, I thought of it as the perfect opener. I’d been a bit worried about Bruce’s vocal range at the chorus – I mean, he’s not twenty six or seven any more – but he left me wondering: ‘is that bloke really fifty next month?’

Fantastic scream to end the song, then little room for chit-chat as the band ploughed pretty much straight on into ‘2 Minutes To Midnight’. You could tell that this song was known to more people – cough, posers, cough – but I wasn’t really that bothered. It was so much fun, probably more so when all those ‘posers’ plus the ones who knew the words to every part of every song thrust two fingers in the air (not that way round) and sang the chorus as one. This song, too, was extremely well done.

When it comes to in-betweeny bits involving Bruce talking, I’m a bit rusty on the order. I remember quite a lot of what he actually said, just not where it came in relation to the setlist.

This is the same with the backdrop changes. The stage set in general was ‘Powerslave’ all over, but the backdrop changed frequently, and there were several: the Eddie with the crystal ball (‘Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son’), The Trooper and, of course, the ‘Powerslave’ kind of thing. I’m pretty sure I mean the album cover here.

There were sweat patches on Bruce’s shirt. He talked to us then, too – general ‘how are you doing, Twickenham?’ sort of stuff that lead, somehow, into a quip about something being a ‘Revelation’. I was actually a little bit slow as to what he meant. Don’t worry – I’m ashamed of myself.

I was surprised, then not surprised, to see that Bruce wasn’t playing guitar in this song. Now Maiden have Janick, he’s not really needed on guitar. And he might risk splitting his head open again, and we wouldn’t want that, would we? Poor Bruce.

At the breaks before the music sped up, when Bruce would have thrust his guitar in the air, we got to yell anyway, so it was all good. It was one of the numbers in the show I’d consider ‘nice’ – you know, it’s quite a nice song. And it was great to see live, as it rarely happens compared to regulars such as ‘2 Minutes To Midnight’. Mind you, I could say that for a lot of the setlist.

During solos, Bruce seemed to disappear a lot. This always lead me to wondering where he had gone, what he was doing, and when he would be back, kind of distracting me a bit. Oh well, that’s not a band issue – that’s more of an obsessive Bruce fan issue.

‘The Trooper’ came next. And Bruce, being a real trooper, put on his red jacket and flew the Union Flag. Is ‘oooooooooooooooooooooooooh’ the best lyric ever written? If it gets the entire crowd singing as one it is. Iron Maiden know this better than most other bands. There’s probably at least one big ‘woah’ part per album.

I think there must have been more than one flag, because towards the end of the song Bruce chucked the one he was holding away and picked up another one.

There was a bit of talking after this song. Apparently, so far on the tour, this was the most people Iron Maiden had played to. Bruce acknowledged everyone at the back, which is always nice, because they can often feel left out. The usual ‘Maiden are bigger now than they ever have been’ thing came up, too, with the added ‘even tough we’ve never been on reality TV’. I cheered. Bruce is so right, and I’ll always be behind him on the ‘Sharon Osbourne thing’.

It’s a crazy world – but the last twenty five years were definitely not ‘Wasted Years’.

This was the song I knew least. ‘Somewhere In Time’ is the only ‘80s-Bruce’ album I don’t yet own. I do have ‘Somewhere Back In Time’, but as that was their most recent release I’d only had it about a month. I knew every song on the setlist except that one before I’d bought that album, so it was always going to be the one I was least familiar with despite getting to know it pretty well. I did enjoy it being played, and for once, I believed in it, if you understand me. After all – any year in which I see Maiden live is a golden year.

The next song introduced itself.

‘Woe to you, O Earth and sea…’

The crowd went crazy. A setlist essential like this always prompts such a reaction – but this intro is hardly your average intro, and everyone ended up chanting along. Including – and especially – me.

The riff started, and everyone knew the words, because ‘The Number Of The Beast’ is one of those songs you can’t go to see Iron Maiden without knowing by heart. No worries for me, then, it being the first Maiden album I ever bought.

I’m going to end up writing similar things for every song if I’m not careful. It was done brilliantly, I was really pleased with my favourite part, the scream, and I enjoyed the whole thing overall as a song. It’s such a crowd-pleaser that it built up an amazing atmosphere, even in our seated area. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of yelling ‘six six six’ with thousands of other people.

There then followed one of their most famous songs, also from that album. Dad had said beforehand that he’d been looking forward to this song. Out of all the material I’d given him to listen to in the car, he’d singled this out as his favourite, saying ‘I think it’s brilliant’. He liked how it starts, then how it gets going properly. He admitted that he’d heard the song a million times, yet had never really listened to it, and never realised just how brilliant it was.

It had been a slight worry for me, because of the extremely high-pitched chorus. However, that worry was blown away when the mighty Mr Dickinson shrieked out the first ‘run for your lives’ of the song. That man is amazing. How on Earth can he hit notes at forty nine that he couldn’t twenty three years previously?

Of course, everyone got involved in this song as well, keeping that amazing atmosphere alive. It was even better remembering that this was the first Maiden song I ever listened to properly (as in, on purpose instead of just catching it on Kerrang!) and it’ll always be a special one for me. Back then, I would never have imagined that I’d be seeing this new band live in the fairly near future. (I’m still a relatively new fan compared to most people).

Bruce spoke for quite a while next. He mentioned the famous Longbeach Arena gigs, and asked who had been there. Quite a few people cheered and raised their arms, to which Bruce replied, ‘you’re all a bunch of lying b*st*rds!’

He also talked about bats. I’m not quite sure why, as I didn’t hear how it started, but he then moved on to albatrosses (is that the plural of albatross? I think so). He asked us; ‘when was the last time you saw an albatross in West London?’. A dude near me yelled ‘yesterday!’ and inspired me to yell something similar. I’d only been in Twickenham for the one day, so I shouted ‘this morning!’ and got a few laughs. They didn’t have to know I’d arrived at half one in the afternoon …

Someone got sick of Bruce’s speech. I don’t know how that’s possible, as Bruce is a funny and interesting person, but I heard a ‘get on with the song!’ from somewhere to my right.

Bruce moved on to talk about Samuel Taylor Coleridge (‘Go Sam!’ someone whooped) and how he’d written the song they were about to play. ‘Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’ apparently has this moral: if you d*ck around with nature, nature will d*ck around with you. That is not, according to Bruce, what he said back at Longbeach. I’m sure on the ‘Live After Death’ DVD he talked a lot about hemp, but he seemed to think otherwise, because what he said he said was ‘this is what not to do if a bird sh*ts on you’.

What a song ‘Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’ is. It should be up there with ‘Stairway To Heaven’ and ‘Free Bird’ – any band who can keep a live audience interested in the same song for nearly fifteen minutes can be nothing short of legendary. Bruce disappeared at the beginning of the song and returned in a big, black, swishy cloak as the Mariner.

The slow part – oooh, I got cold shiver. The stage went mostly dark with a bit of spooky lighting, and it filled with dry ice as the sound effects of the ship creaking and the poem were played. If only it had been later at night, and the whole stadium could’ve gone really dark and added to it enormously.

For such a long song, it went pretty quickly. Not to worry: the next one was one of my personal favourites.

Again, needing no introduction, sound effects played building up to that creepy, low laugh. Nicko came in first, and ‘Powerslave’ started. Bruce came back on in a big, feathery mask (not the same one from the shop of ‘homoerotic paraphernalia’!)

It was really heavy compared to the album version, making that Egyptian feel it has much more intense.

I remember during that first guitar break before the chorus, Bruce did the infamous ‘scream for me, Twickenham … SCREAM FOR ME TWICKENHAM!’. It was neither his first or his last; unfortunately, I can’t remember when any of the other ones were right now, which is a shame because there were a whole load, and every single one made me so happy. Actually screaming for Bruce instead of feeling jealous of the people on the album has to be one of the best feelings in the world.

The pyrotechnics at the chorus were incredible. You could even feel the heat off them all the way back where we were.

I’d thought to myself beforehand that I might do an Egyptian dance during this song, but I knew then I would have felt stupid. If my sister had been there I might’ve considered it.

I think it was during this song that Bruce did this call-and-response ‘hey hey hey hey!’ thing, but I’m remembering the concert as a whole generally so it could have been somewhere else.

I’m pretty sure I gave this song one of my loudest cheers, though.

Another song with no introduction – and one I had mixed feelings about. A few weeks previously, I’d told one of my friends that this was the reason I wanted to see Maiden live, but as the concert had drawn closer I’d started to worry about two things. The first: getting over-emotional and crying at the big ‘woah’ part. The second: feeling jealous of the lucky people who got to be on-stage at the big ‘woah’ part. When the song started, growing gradually louder, I knew neither of these things would happen. I was just enjoying myself too much.

‘Heaven Can Wait’ was immense. It was awkward when it came to the chorus – used to Bruce kind of just singing ‘Heaven can …?’, I sort of did that instead of singing it properly, but in the end I gave up and just went ‘waa-aa-ait!’

The ‘woah’ part only got me with its awesomeness. I was a tiny bit annoyed at how quite a few of the on-stage fans looked like they didn’t belong there at all, but I hardly cared. Did it really matter? I was seeing Iron Maiden. Nothing mattered except that!

Again, this song had that atmosphere to it that you just can’t experience on a live album.

‘Can I Play With Madness?’ came next. It’s not one of my favourites – it’s a bit too much of a ‘single’ really. You could argue that ‘Run To The Hills’ is the same, but that song is a masterpiece.

Anyway, being a ‘single’ has its advantages: everyone knew it really well. And I loved the start. Bruce counted it in, and I knew it was coming because he does the same on ‘A Real Live Dead One’. Only this time, he messed the count-in up somehow, and started it again. He’s a silly sausage.

‘Fear Of The Dark’ is similar to ‘Heaven Can Wait’ in some ways; if you’ve seen them both live you’ll know what I mean. Singing along to the guitars with ‘woah’s always gives me a powerful sensation, but live, with the entire stadium? WOW. Had I cried at any point during the concert, it probably would have been then.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t yet dark. Ah, well. The red stage lighting looked pretty damn good.

I did feel a little bit sad when the next song began. The typical finisher – ‘Iron Maiden’. I knew, though, that they wouldn’t leave without an encore. This relaxed me enough to properly enjoy the only Di’Anno song of the setlist.

When Bruce said he wanted us to sing two words for him, I said ‘Iron Maiden’ under my breath. And you know what? I was right!

Out of the whole night, this was the only song that disappointed me. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the song itself, it was brilliantly done. The thing that annoyed me was the most famous ‘scream for me’. It simply wasn’t there where it should have been.

Eddie reduced my disappointment massively, though. The stage backdrop behind Nicko opened, and out sprung the gigantic, mummy Eddie. Dude, that thing is scary in the best way possible. I mean, if he’d fallen … man. I was awed.

At the end, though, Bruce said goodnight. Nicko chucked out drumsticks; wristbands and a Frisbee went out too. And they left.

I was shocked to see some people actually leave as well. Dude! Of course they were coming back on! There’d been no ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’ yet! Nicko had even been quoted in the program: ‘if there’s no Hallowed then there’s no Nicko!’. And there had been Nicko …

Sure enough, after several minutes of ‘Maiden! Maiden! Maiden!’ they returned.

Bruce looked so pleased with himself that I actually laughed. He stood for a bit listening to everyone with this massive grin on his face like a cat that had got the cream. He made a huge speech, too, that went sort of like this.

Standing there made him want to be a rugby player … no, he’d rather be in Iron Maiden (how lucky is that?). What an amazing place, and what an amazing gig. It had been one of the best he’d ever done in his life, in fact. That got us all going again.

He didn’t know what he was going to do with us, but he expected we’d want a bit more music (of course!). He hoped we didn’t have any plans, because they weren’t going anywhere soon.

He announced that a new album and tour were in the pipeline! I’m not a massive fan of Maiden’s newer work, but it does grow on me so that I don’t dislike it, and I screamed with everyone else. However, Bruce and the boys needed to finish this one first, with our kind permission.

Recently, when he had been asked why Maiden are as big, or bigger, than ever, Bruce had been stuck for words (doesn’t happen very often, does it??). But he did tell those who asked him to “Come to f*cking Twickenham and take a look around you!”

*Cue for Twickenham to go crazy*

Of course, we are the reason Maiden rule – they can rule alone, but they need us, their loyal fans. And I honestly thought, during that speech, that Bruce was trying not to cry. I don’t know if he was or not, it just seemed like it. A bit.

Carrying on …

The residents of Twickenham would probably like to get to sleep – ‘F*CK ‘EM! BOOO! SCREW ‘EM! BOOO!’

It was OK – Bruce knew that we didn’t want sleep. The only crucial thing was that they finished when the pubs were still open – the most important song of the night.

Then came the routine introduction: Janick, Steve, Adrian, Dave and “every home should have one, the lunatic in the corner who gets paid for hitting things, Mr Nicko McBrain!”. Of course, Nicko got the loudest cheer.

They thought they’d do something off an album called ‘Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son’.

Bruce went over to Dave, who had strapped on an acoustic guitar, and they, painfully slowly to annoy us on purpose I think, began ‘Moonchild’.

I don’t know why, but I always think this song’s a strange live number. It’s not that I dislike it in any way – I think it’s amazing how the intro gradually builds up and sounds almost magical. And live, the amazingness was still there.

The highlight of the song, however, is one that is still fixed very firmly in my head. Right at the end, there is a scream followed by manic laughter. Bruce just concentrated on the scream, and what a scream. I can still see his face like it’s a photo, all contorted, eyes shut, mouth wide open, giving him an almost insane look. Funking wicked.

I knew what song was next. I know it’s a crime to ask someone what their favourite Maiden song is, but if someone held a gun to my head and said ‘give me your favourite Iron Maiden song or you die!’ I’d have to say this one.

‘The Clairvoyant’ actually contains my favourite line of any song in the world. ‘Is it me or is it shadows that are dancing on the walls?’. The combination of everything in that line – the tune, the music and, of course, the words themselves – sends a shiver down my spine. Every time. I rang home at this point, hoping to catch it on the answer phone. Sadly, it didn’t come on quickly enough and all I got was ‘normality I see before my eyes’. That message is still on my answer phone. I rang my sister’s mobile for ‘but I’m scared I won’t be able to control it any more’.

Eddie number two came on here. Twice as tall as anyone in the band, if I’d been on-stage I would’ve wet myself. As usual, the band fought him, despite the fact that it was the ‘Somewhere In Time’ Eddie – with a GUN. Easily as awesome, if not more so, than Eddie number one.

The song’s too short. I sang along so loudly my throat hurt, then it was finished.

I knew the next song really would be the last. It was ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’. I thought beforehand that I’d end up crying at this song. But when I heard the intro, I just got excited again. It may have been the last song of the night, but it wasn’t over yet, and it’s a brilliant song no matter where it comes in the set. I forgot all about the fact that as soon as the song finished, my night would be over.

Epic. Awesome. Just two of the words I could use to describe ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’. It’s a little bit sad to hear Bruce singing about how he’s waiting to die, but so atmospheric to sing along with him and everyone else. The solo of this song was probably one of my favourites of the night. Bruce was doing some crowd working so that I didn’t notice it approaching the end. But end it did, and we finally made it to:

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah
Hallowed be thy name,
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Hallowed be thy name.
Ooooooooooooh …’

The ending was extended. But when Nicko smashed his drums twice in quick succession, I heard the last notes, and I knew the concert was finished.

I wasn’t even sad. I was ecstatic. I watched the band have their photo taken, throw out some more bits and pieces, then leave. Nicko returned briefly, but when he vanished again that was it. I sort of hoped they’d come back even though I knew they wouldn’t. I was right – the lights all came back on and over the sound system ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’ played. Even though everyone was leaving, they all whistled along. I would’ve done too if my whistling had been up to scratch.

I really was surprised that my throat didn’t hurt. After all the singing, screaming for Bruce and battling it out for volume against the other side of the stadium I’d done, my voice wasn’t even hoarse.

What I did have were a few pictures taken during ‘The Trooper’, ‘Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’, ‘Iron Maiden’ and ‘The Clairvoyant’, and video clips from ‘The Trooper’, ‘The Number Of The Beast’, ‘Powerslave’ and ‘Run To The Hills’. None of them were good quality, as I was too far away and missing my broken camera.

People were talking about how great a time they’d had (“That mummy and that cyborg were mental!” was one I overheard). I saw another funky t-shirt – a Nicko-esque ‘Iron What?’.

In all the rush, Dad said to me: ‘this is Bruce’s life’. That got me thinking: what a life.

We managed to get to the other side of the stadium before we realised we’d gone way past the coach pick-up point. We’d tested the route from the entrance before we’d actually gone in, so we’d got messed up. But once we’d got on our way, it was so busy we ended up on the road, beside a line of red London buses. I heard a drunk dude singing ‘Infinite Dreams’ and saw several other guys selling shirts for a tenner.

We made it to the coach, where someone had nicked our seats. Taking our stuff, we moved to the front. The coach was the quietest place I’d been yet, and my ears were barely ringing. Yet another thing that amazed me.

We had to move whilst waiting for a couple of stragglers. I found out a week and a day later that the driver had to park so far away that he’d missed the concert. I felt so awful, but it was too late to do anything by then really.

The stragglers eventually arrived, and we set off. Away from the metallers, into the traffic. It was quite a while, though, before the Maiden shirts vanished altogether.

There were no CDs or DVDs on now. It stayed quiet so people could go to sleep.

Dad and I didn’t talk to each other much at first. I was thinking and texting people I said I’d text. My sister, for example, got sent: ‘Just got on the coach and getting ready to set off home, maiden were EFFING FANTASTIC! Only problem was boring crowd. Oh, and I got called a lying beep. Oh well.’ I saw Dad’s screen too – whoever he was texting, he’d written ‘bloody good concert’. That made me smile.

We talked about how much we’d enjoyed ourselves and what we’d thought more when the coach got going properly. He’d been impressed by Bruce, the guitarists (I could see Janick in my head jumping up and down, swirling his guitar around his neck and throwing it in the air during ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’). Actually, he said, they were all good.

Course they were. The whole concert had been as perfect as a concert can possibly be – because a concert that’s perfect is called an album. Or a miming prat. Which Bruce certainly is not. One thing that had caught my eye – or ear – about his performance was a line he didn’t quite reach in the last song, but that could just as easily have been a problem with the audio, it was hard to tell.

There was another thing I’d noticed about Bruce’s singing. It wasn’t a problem or mistake at all, it just made me laugh a bit. One line of a song, I can’t remember which, he’d obviously decided was going to be too high for him. He lowered it an octave instead of foolishly attempting it anyway – good man. But then it went too low, and he had to bring it all the way back up again.

Another thing that came up (thanks to me) was the fact that Bruce was so little. I knew he was, but you could really tell when you saw him on-stage. My RE teacher was right – for such a small guy he was a hell of a showman with a GIGANTIC voice.

We also talked about Bruce’s costume changes. And that’s about all I can remember.

I was sort of tired, yet trying not to go to sleep in case it erased my memories faster. Most others, though, had not thought of this, and were out of it.

I had a mixture of two songs in my head. ‘Die With Your Boots On’ and the slow part of ‘Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’, the latter being so clear I could have had headphones in.

Then I fell asleep. And woke up. This happened a few times, because I tried to stop myself. The feeling of waking up on a motorway is not pleasant. During this stage, I half-though, half-dreamt a storyline about a rock star, inspired by what the stadium might look like empty, which I decided to start writing as soon as I had time.

I accidentally fell asleep for real, and for a while, until just before we arrived at Leicester. And the weirdest thing happened. The two songs I’d had in my head had vanished, and had been replaced with ‘Afraid To Shoot Strangers’. Not a really familiar song for me at the time – I knew it a bit, and it had been played on the coach on the way there, but the one part in my head was the two title lines just before the fast part, on repeat.

I hadn’t been sad at all until that point. But then, it was Sunday early morning, I was sleepy, wandering round a near-empty, oddly quiet service station, a long way from both home and Twickenham, with a miserable song in my head, just beginning to miss Iron Maiden.

The song’s not miserable. It’s beautiful. It was more that association with the exciting journey there that was now over, made worse when I found an issue of Kerrang! Magazine in WH Smith with Steve on the front. ‘Iron Maiden play Twickenham Stadium on Saturday, 5th July’ the article inside informed me.

We crossed over to the other side – the side we’d arrived at on the way down. I felt worse still.

I fell asleep again until Leeds, then again until we got back To Middlesbrough. As we pulled into the bus station, another really weird thing happened. I’d never understood how peoples’ whole lives ‘flashed before their eyes’ before, until a really fast video montage sped through my head. From arriving at the bus station on foot to the journey, the day in Twickenham, the concert, al the way to the ride home and that present moment. It was strange – and incredibly depressing.

We got off the coach, said goodbye to the driver, and walked in the cold morning air to the car. My mouth tasted of old, sticky sweets, having eaten quite a few in my waking moments. It was disgusting. I was tired and sad and it was so quiet, combining to make an indescribable feeling. The car journey was the same. I didn’t say much. Dad stopped at a garage for petrol and I turned on the CD player to listen to the live version of ‘Afraid To Shoot Strangers’. I’d forgotten what most of the song sounded like. Hearing it made me feel weirder. I can’t tell even now if I felt better or worse for hearing it.

We got home at about twenty five to seven, and the best twenty four hours (pretty much) of my life were over.

I said goodnight to Dad and went to bed. I wrote in both of my diaries:

Iron Maiden play Twickenham! Fantastic show, fantastic Bruce, best f*cking day of my entire life.

And:

IRON MAIDEN! WHOO! Twickenham was lovely and sunny and the stadium was huge and the gig was awesome. Absolute beast of a day.

I didn’t think I’d sleep.

The next thing I knew, Dad was waking me up. But it wasn’t like ‘Groundhog Day’. It wasn’t Saturday, 5th July. It was half past nine on Sunday, 6th July, and in an hour my friend was picking me up to go on holiday.

That’s right. No time to mourn my loss, no time to miss Maiden.

I did feel rather upset saying bye to Dad, and the first time I was on my own on the holiday (when I went for a shower) I looked at my sad face in the mirror, got Avril Lavigne’s ‘When You’re Gone’ in my head (I don’t like it, just so you know!), and just wanted to cry. Generally, though, I was too busy. And no one I was on holiday with really cared about Iron Maiden.

Now it’s a week and three days (second draft a week and four days, third draft a week and five days) since the gig and I still miss it badly. In fact, I actually did cry about it a couple of days ago, so I should be feeling better soon now that it’s out of my system. Yeah – I’m a loser. I cried about a band. But you’ve got to understand this feeling. It’s like ‘post-Potter depression’ (I used to get that bad when I was a nerd) only worse, because Iron Maiden are real, dude,

And despite all this post-concert depression, I’ve come to terms with ‘Afraid To Shoot Strangers’. I still put my arms in the air whenever I hear a rockin’ tune.

And Iron Maiden rocked Twickenham.

Hell – Iron Maiden rock.

Notes

1) I tried to remember as much of this day as possible on my own, so some details may be incorrect.

2) I didn't originally write this intending for it to go on the Internet, so if it's a bit weird it's because I wrote it for myself.

3) I used YouTube as a memory aid every now and again ...

4) My friend, who knows who he is, helped me to recover Bruce's encore speech. Cheers!